Thursday, November 29, 2012

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind



Family marker at Glenwood Cemetery in Houston, Texas.

The Glenwood Cemetery is located at 2525 Washington Avenue in Houston, Texas. It was the first cemetery in Houston to be professionally designed and opened in 1871. The cemetery is situated between Washington Avenue on the North side and Memorial Drive on the South side, the latter overlooking Buffalo Bayou.

Buried in the cemetery is William P. Hobby, after whom Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas, is named. In 1938, the William P. Hobby Airport in Houston, known at the time as Houston Municipal Airport, was renamed “Howard Hughes Airport,” but the name was changed back after people objected to naming the airport after a living person. This is also the location of pioneering heart surgeon Dr. Denton Cooley’s family grave-site. Anson Jones, the last president of the Republic of Texas, is also buried here.

This historic cemetery is the final resting place of a number of individuals who were citizens of the short-lived Republic of Texas. The grave sites of those individuals have been designated with metal markers and are frequently decorated with the flag of the Republic and State of Texas. 

Keith Rosen, a Houston area history professor quoted in the San Antonio Express-News, said that the cemetery is the "River Oaks of the dead."

Title quote from William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream


Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts

Iris flowers in HDR


This is my first posting of a photo not taken by myself, this was taken by my mother in her garden. It was processed by yours truly though.

Title quote from Sigmund Freud.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Nothing that surrounds us is object, all is subject

Top of tanks at pumping station - George Bush Park - Houston, Texas - HDR - Panoramic


Pumping station tanks containing...? at George Bush Park in Houston, Texas.

Another panoramic comprising 8 separate HDR frames, totaling around 60 megapixels.

Title quote from  André Breton.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Scarcely has night arrived to undeceive, unfurling her wings of crepe

Sunset at The Imperial Sugar Factory in Sugar Land, Texas - HDR


At the old Imperial Sugar factory in Sugar Land, Texas. The factory has been shut down for a few years now, but they still use the premisses for various activities, like a farmers market.

I have plans to see if I can get permission to go inside one day and document the whole place in all its abandoned(some what) glory.



"Scarcely has night arrived to undeceive, unfurling her wings of crepe (wings drained even of the glimmer just now dying in the tree-tops); scarcely has the last glint still dancing on the burnished metal heights of the tall towers ceased to fade, like a still glowing coal in a spent brazier, which whitens gradually beneath the ashes, and soon is indistinguishable from the abandoned hearth, than a fearful murmur rises amongst them, their teeth chatter with despair and rage, they hasten and scatter in their dread, finding witches everywhere, and ghosts. It is night... and Hell will gape once more"

- Charles Nodier, Smarra: & Trilby

Monday, November 19, 2012

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one

Pumping Station at George Bush Park in Houston, Texas - HDR Panoramic


George Bush park has a few wells on its grounds, not sure what they're pumping but they are still in use. Regardless, they looked cool.

This is the combination of 3 separate "portrait"  HDR frames stitched together to create the "landscape" you see before you. This just about triples the pixels of my average "landscape" photo putting it at around 35 mega-pixels.

When I stitched it it didn't quite come together right there at the top of the dials box, it looks like its tearing apart. I though it looked cool so I left it alone.

 Title quote from Albert Einstein

Thursday, November 15, 2012

He raised against the gods in the machine, Then once again the sandbank lay serene

Rusted machinery at No Label Brewery in Katy, Texas - HDR


Rusty machines!                                                                                                   - At No Label Brewery


Robert Frost - The Egg and the Machine -

He gave the solid rail a hateful kick.
From far away there came an answering tick
And then another tick. He knew the code:
His hate had roused an engine up the road.
He wished when he had had the track alone
He had attacked it with a club or stone
And bent some rail wide open like switch
So as to wreck the engine in the ditch.
Too late though, now, he had himself to thank.
Its click was rising to a nearer clank.
Here it came breasting like a horse in skirts.
(He stood well back for fear of scalding squirts.)
Then for a moment all there was was size
Confusion and a roar that drowned the cries
He raised against the gods in the machine.
Then once again the sandbank lay serene.
The traveler's eye picked up a turtle train,
between the dotted feet a streak of tail,
And followed it to where he made out vague
But certain signs of buried turtle's egg;
And probing with one finger not too rough,
He found suspicious sand, and sure enough,
The pocket of a little turtle mine.
If there was one egg in it there were nine,
Torpedo-like, with shell of gritty leather
All packed in sand to wait the trump together.
'You'd better not disturb any more,'
He told the distance, 'I am armed for war.
The next machine that has the power to pass
Will get this plasm in it goggle glass.'

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Clouds on clouds, in volumes driven, Curtain round the vault of heaven

Cloudy day at White Lake in Cullinan Park in Houston. Texas - HDR


White Lake at Cullinan Park near Sugar Land, Texas.

The lands of Cullinan Park were first settled in 1828 by Alexander Hodge, a member of Stephen F. Austin’s Old Three Hundred.   For over 150 years, this Columbia Bottomland country was then used for raising cattle, sugar cane, and other crops.   In 1989, Cullinan Park was acquired by the Houston Parks Board and City of Houston, and opened in 1991 as a nature preserve with improvements funded by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Title quote by Thomas Love Peacock


Tuesday, November 13, 2012

When the sun has set, no candle can replace it

Just before sunset at a field in George Bush park - Houston, Texas - HDR - Panoramic


A field at George Bush Park in Houston, Texas, just before sunset. This photo is actually made up of of twenty photos combined. 4 sets of 5 frames at different exposures combined in the usual HDR fashion and then those images were stitched together to create the final panoramic, its around 30 megapixels total.

The federal government opened the Barker Reservoir in the 1940s, mainly for Buffalo Bayou flood control. The present area occupies about half of the original area.

Due to the ongoing Texas drought, on 9/13/2011, Houston Firefighters were dispatched to the park responding to a wildfire. The fire quickly grew and the firefighters were sent to the north levee near I-10 to wait for the fire to come to them and stop it there. At one point the fire was one mile wide, consuming 1,500-acres of the park, with the cause under investigation.

Title quote from George R.R. Martin

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

The Window on the West


Window on the west - west facing barn window - HDR - Houston texas


Every time I was driving home from work, back when we lived in Houston the first time, this barn structure a little off the road (on the north side of interstate 10 just east of Highway 6), would catch my eye.

And now that we're back and I am working that job again, I pass by there twice a week. Well last Friday, I stopped to check it out.

I must admit, the inside is one of the least interesting interiors of an abandoned building that I have run across yet. It is completely emptied out, no worn out machinery, no graffitied walls, just some fake grass carpet.

Judging from the fact that it was next to a unkempt baseball field, I think it may have contained batting cages or something of that nature.

But I persevered and got some good shots, this one in particular is one of my best yet, I think.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

...By water, wood and hill, by reed and willow...


Mirrored tree on water - Buffalo Bayou at Geoger Bush Park in Houston Texas - HDR



Exploring the George Bush Park and it's sprawling 7,800 acres. Well I probably only explored a single acre, but I plan to make many more trips.

 George Bush Park is a city park in Houston, Texas in the United States. It is the sixth largest city park in the nation, covering 7,800 acres (32 km2). It was previously known as Cullen-Barker Park.





Monday, November 5, 2012

...where moth and rust doth corrupt...

No Label Brewery - Under the Silos - Katy, Texas, HDR


I stopped by the No Label Brewery in Katy, Texas the other day. With the right camera, I could spend all day there. They operate out of an old silo complex that I can't seem to find the history of, at the moment...



Sunday, November 4, 2012

Westchase Park Sunset

Westchase Park Sunset - Houston, Texas - HDR

Pass by here frequently while driving the Sam Houston Toll Way. I was on my way home with a better then average sunset in progress so I had to stop and catch this. In front of Westchase Park Houston Office building.

Friday, November 2, 2012

Imagination and Medium

New Forms by Tony Cragg at Cullen Sculpture Garden at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas - HDR

Strolling through the Cullen Sculpture Garden at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas.

Here we have "New Forms", a group of bronze sculptures by British artist, Tony Cragg.

I read that his inspiration for these came from the contents of a chemistry lab.






Phenomenal Cullen Art Sculpture Garden
Emergence
Tony Cragg