Who, through long days of labor, And nights devoid of ease, Still heard in his soul the music Of wonderful melodies

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Went back to White lake a few weeks ago to attempt a sunset time lapse but I forgot my intervalometer. So I decided to just take some of the usual shots. I got this pano in while I was there and it turned out better then I thought it would. This pano is roughly 100 degrees.

Did you know that...

   The colors of the sunset result from a phenomenon called scattering, molecules and small particles in the atmosphere change the direction of light rays, causing them to scatter. Scattering affects the color of light coming from the sky, but the details are determined by the wavelength of the light and the size of the particle. The short-wavelength blue and violet are scattered by molecules in the air much more than other colors of the spectrum. This is why blue and violet light reaches our eyes from all directions on a clear day. But because we can’t see violet very well, the sky appears blue.
   Scattering also explains the colors of the sunrise and sunset. Because the sun is low on the horizon, sunlight passes through more air at sunset and sunrise than during the day, when the sun is higher in the sky. More atmosphere means more molecules to scatter the violet and blue light away from your eyes. If the path is long enough, all of the blue and violet light scatters out of your line of sight. The other colors continue on their way to your eyes. This is why sunsets are often yellow, orange, and red. And because red has the longest wavelength of any visible light, the sun is red when it’s on the horizon, where its extremely long path through the atmosphere blocks all other colors.

Now you know...


The title quote is from "The Day is Done" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven...

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I took this the same night I took the Houston Panorama. I was fascinated by the orange glow of the  JPMorgan Chase Building, so I stowed my 24-105mm and whipped out the 70-300mm for a close-up shot before I left.

JPMorgan Chase Building is a 37-story 130 m (430 ft) Art Deco skyscraper in downtown Houston, Texas. Completed in 1929, it remained the tallest building in Houston until 1963, when the Exxon Building surpassed it in height. The building is the Houston headquarters of JPMorgan Chase Bank, and was formerly the headquarters of Texas Commerce Bank.

The title quote is from the Book of Genesis, 11 verse 4, concerning the tower of Babel.

For the Birds

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Here we have a couple Black-bellied whistling-ducks enjoying the scenery at Hermann Park in the Museum District of Houston.

They breed from the southernmost United States and tropical Central to south-central South America. In the USA, it can be found year-round in parts of southeast Texas and are some times known to vacation in southeast Arizona and along the Louisiana gulf coast.


More from Hermann Park

Night on the town

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Here we have a panoramic photo of Down town Houston. It's roughly 180 degrees. Made up of 12 portrait HDR shots. To see it in all its glory click here: http://gigapan.com/gigapans/128389.

I got lucky that the Astros were playing that night, adds something to the scene I think. I had mad this trip to get some sunset shots with the Houston skyline but I didn't leave the house early enough.

Fly me to the moon, Let me play among the stars, Let me see what spring is like On, a Jupiter and Mars

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Here's another at White Lake from a few weeks ago. This one is also a single exposure the I played around with in Lightroom to bring out these colors and give it more contrast. You can barely see the moon at the top of the photo due to the wide angle shot, I should have brought my 70-300mm but I was feeling lazy.

The title is the first four lines of "Fly me to the moon", a Frank Sinatra classic.

Voiceless it cries, wingless flutters, toothless bites, mouthless mutters

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A single Raw edited in Lightroom, taken at the Imperial Sugar Factory in Sugar Land, Texas.

This just goes to show how much you can do with a single RAW in Lightroom or any other photo-editing software, there wasn't nearly this much color and depth in the original shot.

If there be light, then there is darkness; if cold, heat; if height, depth; if solid, fluid; if hard, soft; if rough, smooth; if calm, tempest; if prosperity, adversity; if life, death.

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Underneath the majestic Sam Houston Tollway(Beltway 8), and Interstate 10(not pictured).

I love light trails, I've been wanted to do this long before I got my first and current DSLR. Can't wait to do it again.

The layout of Houston's highways, specifically it's inner(Interstate 610) and outer(Beltway8) loops have become a popular metropolitan highway design for other large metro areas around the world.

Tittle quote by Pythagoras.

Each, from his peculiar angle of observation, takes in a certain sphere of fact and trouble, which each must deal with in a unique manner

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The other night after class, I walked down to the intersection of Interstate 10 and Sam Houston Toll Way(Beltway 8) and took some long exposures.

There's just something about the freeway system in Houston that is awe inspiring.

This is the only one without light trails (which was my objective for the whole endeavor) but I love the angle.

This is a 30sec exposure tweaked in Lightroom.

The title is an excerpt from the quote:

“. . . I do not see how it is possible that creatures in such different positions and with such different powers as human individuals are, should have exactly the same functions nor should we be expected to work out identical solutions. Each, from his peculiar angle of observation, takes in a certain sphere of fact and trouble, which each must deal with in a unique manner.”

  By William James

Sam Houston Park

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Here we have another from Sam Houston Park in Downtown Houston, Texas. Took this a couple months ago with the old Sony Cyber-Shot. This is another stitched panoramic made up of about 7 or so portrait HDRed shots. I love this shot but I don't think the Cyber-Shot was up to the dynamic range of this scene, there was a lot of noise in the dark areas of the statue. I'll have to take another walk through the park and see what the 5D can make of this scene. 

The evening darkens over, After a day so bright, The windcapt waves discover, That wild will be the night

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My third favorite from the other night at White Lake in Cullinan Park.

Title from "The Evening Darkens Over" by Robert Bridges. Click on the poem title to see the poem in it's entirety.  A great poem, it's worth a read.

The other two from that night:

Only a mighty sadness fills, The silence of the dark

Fire in the sky

The Water Wall

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And facing away from Williams tower you get to see this beauty  the Water Wall. Also located in the Galleria mall area of Uptown Houston, Texas. This too is a 30sec exposure (my first ever in fact), tweaked in Lightroom to bring out the textures and colors, tone down the brights and bring out the darks. Gotta love editing RAWs in Lightroom.

Wlliams Tower at night

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Williams Tower in Uptown near the Houston Galleria shopping mall in Houston, Texas. This is a 30sec long exposure with some lightroom tweaking.

Fire in the sky

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Another one from the other night at Cullinan Park. This time facing into the sunset.

Only a mighty sadness fills, The silence of the dark

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The weather was amazing and the clouds look great yesterday for the first time in a month here in the Houston area. So the wife an I went down to Cullinan Park just north of Sugar Land, TX to check out the sunset. This one is actually facing away from the sunset but the pinks in the clouds just looked amazing.

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

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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

Knowing others is Wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment

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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

Sabine-to-Bagby Promenade

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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.

A city is a place where there is no need to wait for next week to get the answer to a question, to taste the food of any country, to find new voices to listen to and familiar ones to listen to again

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Downtown Houston, Texas seen from the Buffalo Bayou pedestrian bridge that connects The Sabine-to-Bagby Promenade to Downtown.

This is another stitched panoramic. 

Title Quote from Margaret Mead.

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

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"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.

The wind blows where it pleases. You cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.

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Another stitched-panoramic (comprising 5 separate, portrait frames, if I remember correctly) taken at the base of the tanks at the pumping station at George Bush Park in Houston, Texas.

Title quote from John 3:8