Monday, December 24, 2012

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

I'm a "Get the Gig" finalist!

Just found out that I'm a "Get the Gig" finalist!

I will receive a photojournalist equipment package consisting of the following:

(1) Canon® EOS 5D Mark III EF 24-105mm IS Kit, 
(1) Canon® 600 RT Speedlite, 
(1) Canon® 70-300 Telephoto lens, 
(1) Canon® Carry Bag, 
(1) Canon® Pixma® Wireless Photo Printer,
(1) Canon® PowerShot® G12, 
(1) Canon® Battery Grip, Canon® Cartridges, 
(150) Canon® Photo Paper Sheets, 
(1) Sony® Pocket Bit USM-P Series USB flash drive (8 GB), and 
(1) 64GB SD Card X3. 
Each Finalist will also receive a check in the amount of $4,500.00. 
Total Approximate Retail Value of each Finalist Prize is $15,996.00.


My self and the 7 other finalists will receive an assignment, and the top 4 submissions of that assignment will win the grand prize of $20,000!

There is a force more powerful than steam and electricity: the will

grafitti covered electrical box behind the Chong Hua Sheng Mu Holy Palace in Houston, Texas.


Still at the Chong Hua Sheng Mu Holy Palace. Don't know of the Palace? Check out my previous post.

Title quote from Fernán Caballero


Monday, December 10, 2012

Knowing others is Wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment



At the Chong Hua Sheng Mu Holy Palace, an abandoned since 2001.

Construction on the Chong Hua Sheng Mu Holy Palace was to be the beginning of a grand complex for spiritual rejuvenation, an oasis of calm within the sprawling suburbs of western Houston. But with the US government preventing the group leader's 2001 return from a trip abroad, all work stopped, without much hope of seeing the Tien Tao temple complex completed.

It has the architectural air of Dr. No meets Wernham-Hogg or Dunder-Miflin. The dramatic gold dome looks perfect for housing a doomsday weapon and twin minarets flank either side, but the construction and materials has all the grace and inspiration of a mundane industrial office tower. The entire property is gated and fenced off, but exploration of the north wall may reveal an accessible entrance. Once on the grounds, visitors to the building will find it buttoned up tight with robust security gates around all the main entrances and side doors. With the project stopped before the interior was started, the inside (apparently) has little to offer. Windows are either blacked out or too high to gaze in on, so the simple bizarreness of the building will have to do. The palace, for an abandoned building, remains surprisingly tidy and seemingly maintained. Grass mowed, parking lot relatively free of garbage and graffiti painted over.

Title quote from: Lao Tzu

Info from: Nothing to see here: Chong Hua Sheng Mu Holy Palace

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Sabine-to-Bagby Promenade

Sabine-to-Bagby Promenade - Houston, Texas - HDR - Stitched


At Sabine st on the Sabine-to-Bagby Promenade, heading into Eleanor Tinsley Park in Houton, Texas. This is a two shot stitched but someone distracted me in between shots. I kinda like the outcome so I didn't clean up the edges.

Monday, December 3, 2012

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature

The Pirit of the Confederacy - Memorial to fallen soldiers of the Confederacy at Sam Houston Park in Houston Texas - HDR


"The Spirit of the Confederacy" at Sam Houston Park at downtown Houston, Texas.

The plaque on the base says: “To all heroes of the South who fought for the Principles of States Rights.”

This monument placed in 1908 is made from bronze and granite.

AMATEIS, LOUIS (1855-1913). Louis Amateis, sculptor, was born in Turin, Italy, on December 13, 1855, the son of Gen. Paolo and Carolina Amateis. He studied architecture at the Institute of Technology and sculpture at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, both in Turin, and received a gold medal from the Royal Academy for outstanding work. In 1880 he received a silver medal at the National Exposition in Turin. He also studied art in Paris and Milan before immigrating to the United States in 1883. Amateis settled first in New York City, where he did some architectural sculpture, primarily for the firm of McKim, Mead, and White. He married Dora Ballin in New York City on February 24, 1889; they had four sons. After his marriage Amateis moved to Washington, D.C., to found the School of Architecture and Fine Arts at Colombian University (later George Washington University), where he served as chairman of the Department of Fine Arts from 1892 to 1902. Among some of his best known works are the bronze doors (1909) intended for the west main entrance to the United States Capitol, a monument to the heroes of the Texas Revolution (1900) in Galveston, and busts of such prominent men as President Chester A. Arthur, Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock, and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.

Title quote from Abraham Lincoln.