Power

Tonight I nearly finished preparing my dinner, when the power went out. In Texas the power returns typically after a few minutes. We'll not today. I'm already half an hour in the dark. Luckily I have a few flash lights because of nighttime photography shoots.

Annoying is that the uninterrupted power supply for my router is beeping every 15 seconds. What were the designers thinking? That I wouldn't notice the power went out? It is pitch dark!

I guess I have to drive to McDonalds for dinner.

Day 3 - New Mexico

I scouted the Very Large Array location, last night. Therefore this morning it was an easy drive to the location. I have to look up the exact dimensions but the dishes have a diameter of 25 meter. This half year they are all I the D-configuration. Unofficial that stands for Darn close. What I didn't know was that they move quite quickly. At 8am the visitor center opened and I could get some shots closer to the VLA. But when I got there they were all in an unfavorable position I.e. a lot of shade. When I was thinking about what to do with the situation, one of the operators came out to smoke a cigarette and told me they would rotate in about 15 minutes.

On my way to the state park City of Rocks, I realized that New Mexico has a, even lower population density that Texas. I drove for over an hour without spotting a house or gas station.

Day 2 - New Mexico

After yesterday's drive through Texas, I decided to sleep in this morning. My first stop was 'White Sands NP'. The National Park is located in the middle of a missile test range. Luckily no tests today, otherwise the park would be closed. The dunes in the park are actually not sand dunes but gypsum. You might wonder why the rain didn't take away the gypsum over the centuries, that is because the dunes are in a basin. There is no way out for the water.

The next stop was Cloudcroft. This village is on top of a mountain but is not much special besides all the tourist shops.

The last stop for today was the Very Large Array (VLA). Sunset wasn't really special because of the cloudy skies. At least I knew my way around for sunset.

Everything is bigger in Texas.

I spend most of my first vacation day behind the wheel, driving from Houston to El Paso. After 1 bottle of water, 2 coffee, 2 hamburgers meals,  4 stops for gas, 6 granola bars, 12 hours of driving (and stopping to take 106 photos), 28 gallons of gas, 722 miles ............ and I'm still in Texas. El Paso is in a different time zone though, i.e. Mountain time.

For the Europeans that is about 106 liters of gas for 1228 kilometers. I don't think I will get the Al Gore award for this vacation.

My gps logger says that my average speed from my apartment to my hotel room was 53 mph. That's not to bad given the stops I made. No, I didn't break the speed limit. Shortly after San Antonio the speed limit is raised to 80 mph. I was surprised to see that s the fuel consumption increased about 20-25% just by increasing the speed from 70 mph to 80 mph.

Theater District Open House

Shooting photos at a theater is usually impossible. Today, there was an Open House at a number of Houston theaters during which photography was allowed.

The Flying Karamazov Brothers


This was not one of the performances, but someone walking inside Alley Theater. Overthere they didn’t allow photography during a performance, but they had great pizza for $1.00


Karen Stokes Dance




Last but not least an hour long performance of the Houston Symphony in Jones Hall.

Port Arthur

I had scheduled to make a short visit to Port Arthur before visiting the state parks north of Beaumont. I never got that far, because the city gives so many photo opportunities. On Monday, I had a hard time explaining to my colleagues what is so interesting about Port Arthur. Yoiu can judge yourself.

On January 10, 1901, a well at Spindletop struck oil. The new oil field soon produced more than 100,000 barrels (16,000 m3) of oil per day. Since there wasn’t a refinery in Beaumont, the oil was shipped to Pennsylvania from Port Arthur. Starting. Today, there are many oil related plants in Port Arthur.

The population dropped since the 80s of the past century. Add a few hurricanes (Rita & Katrina 2004, Ike 2008) into the mix and you end up with many abandoned houses and retail space. The surprising part is that they never bounced back to business as usuall. To business owners just left. This is a big negative for the population, but creates some great photos.

Jet Taxi is one of the companies that did not return to business after the Katrina.,


I luckily always have half a dozen water bottles in my car, because the Port Arthur Water Plant didn’t predict too much.


This is a typical image for Port Arthur: close to the plants and a few abandoned houses. I have to point out that there are also very nice neighborhoods in Port Arthur. Click on the image for the large size photo.


With the temperatures finally dropping from a 110F heat index, the early evening is the right time to shoot hoops.

Bolivar Peninsula

I had a meeting in Beaumont, Saturday evening 8pm. Driving from Houston to Beaumont takes only about three hours when I would follow I10. Since I had the entire day, I decided to take the long route through Bolivar Peninsula.

Waiting for the ferry from Galveston to Port Bolivar, I spotted this truck. It is common accepted practice for people to sit in the bed of a truck. The restrictions for riding in cargo areas are set (or not) by each state.


The Bolivar Peninsula was hit hard during hurricane Ike. This category 4 hurricane made landfall near Galveston on September 13th, 2008. At category 4 hurricane has wind speeds up to 155 mph / 249 kmh and storm surge up to 18ft / 5.5m. Along the beach most (summer) houses were simply gone, only the pile foundation was left.

During my visit, some buildings are still in the same condition as they were after Ike. The cross on the wall is created by an urban search and resue team. At the top of the cross, the time is listed when the team left the building, the zero to the right indicates that there an no risks, the numbers at the bottom of the cross indicate 0 survivors and 0 casualties. The team name and date are listed on the left. Typically the SAR team uses orange spray paint, but I guess that doesn’t work to well on an orange wall.


After Ike, home owners rebuild there house, but this time high enough to survice a 20ft storm surge.


After driving on the Interstates around Houston and attending the annual Art Car Parade, I thought I wouldn’t be easily surprised about Americans and car. The beach at Crystal Beach surprised me a little. Everyone just drives their SUV or truck to the shore line, takes out a couple of chairs and has a good time.


The Bolivar Peninsula is an interesting area to spend a day.

Galveston - shipyard

A friend told me about the nice shots he took in Galveston. I decided to go for sunset photos. Sunset photos are always a bit of a gamble, especially when the location is 1,5 hour drive from home. The weather forecast indicated that there would be a bit of cloud cover, so I drove to Galveston. The location was better than I could wish for, a rock solid pier (no blurry photos) and a band (The Tomz Katz Band) was playing at Joe's Crab Shack at Pier 19. I would almost forget that the photos came out quite nice.

The shipyard is ‘Gulf Copper Dry Dock & Offshore Rig Repair’. During Ike, the water level in Galveston was about 6-9 feet. It took quite a while to rebuild the economy. Luckily the damage to the shipyard was minor and was able to reopen a week after Ike made landfall.

Independence Day

On July 2nd 1776, the Second Continental Congress approved the resolution of independence which separated the 13 colonies from Great Britain. On July 4th, Congress approved the Declaration of Independence.

Each year, Independence Day is celebrated with parades, barbeques and fireworks. Within the city limits of Houston, fireworks is banned except for professionals.This year, I went to a shopping mall called CityCentre.

DockDogs

DockDogs is a US organisation that holds weekly dog jumping events. Last Saturday, they had set up a pool in Discovery Green Houston.
My plan was to shoot panning photos. It turned out that was nearly impossible because of the variable speed of dogs. For example a motorcycle has a much more constant speed which gives a much higher success rate for panning shots. At least I got one relatively good shot. It looks like a blurry shot, but take a look at the dog....

5th Ward

The Houston summer is to warm to walk around town. Therefore I decided to drive around town. About a year ago, I visited Saint Arnold’s Brewery that is located north of I10. Today’s photo-road-trip started from there.

The 5th Ward dates back to the late 19th century. After the Civil War (1861-1865) the freed slaves started settling in the sparsely populated area North of Houston, which is known today as the 5th Ward. In 2000, the median income was $8,900.

During the 70s and 80s of the 20th century, the 5th Ward was notorious for its high crime rate. When I checked the number at the Houston Police Department website, I couldn't find that much of a difference with other areas in Houston. My colleagues were surprised when they learned where I went for the weekend, but I guess they still remembered the stories from the last century. I didn’t feel unsafe in the 5th Ward.



From a distance it looked like this lady was drying her laundry, until I got closer and realized ‘no one has this much laundry’.


Unlike other cities around the world, Houston doesn’t know zoning laws.


All these houses seem to be abandoned.


These houses seem to be constructed later in the 20th century. Unfortunately the battery in my gps logger ran out of power, therefore these photos don’t have a geotag.


Houston and Galveston were an important stop for many railroad companies. Most of these companies had their own tracks which resulted in many rail intersections and rail tracks in parallel. Especially the north side of Houston has many railway tracks. Today, many freight trains use the tracks.




This photo shows three level crossings in a row.


The 5th Ward is about a few decades older than construction of railroad. Looking at the map, it can be observed that the railway tracks followed the street pattern, where in other neighborhoods the street pattern is laid out around the railway tracks. I wouldn’t be surprised when the stop sign at the railroad crossing below dates back to the years when verhicles and train made use of the same road. Today the stop sign has no function anymore.

Galveston RailRoad museum

In September 2008, Hurricane Ike took its toll on the museum. The entire Island was under 3-4 feet of salt water. Salt water and metal trains don’t go well together. Only recently the museum opened up for visitors.

During our visit, the temperature was very high but I got a few nice photos/




The salt sediment had taken its toll on this rail car.

Flashmob

Last Wednesday, I received an email about a flashmob that was scheduled for today. The participant would gather at Memorial City and dress up as mice. That proved to be a nice photo opportunity.

Miller Outdoor Theatre

Every summer, Houston’s Miller Outdoor Theatre presents a wide range of movies, plays and music performances. Tonight, Houston Symphonie played Beethoven’s 5th Symphonie and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

Portraits

The most popular photos are the ones with people. Therefore this weekend I practiced my portraits techniques. The Houston Portrait Network had organized a kid-shoot in Tranquility Park. The event started early to beat the Houston summer heat.


F

Memorial Day

The last Monday of May is a U.S. national holiday called Memorial Day. On this day the fallen soldiers serving the US armed forces are remembered. This day was first observed 1865 to remember fallen Union soldiers during the Civil war. It took many years before this day was accepted by everyone in the US.

On this day, a ceremony took place a the Houston National Cemetery, which is the second largest National Cemetery in the US. I arrived early to beat the crowd and got a good seat at the ceremony.



I’m not really sure why, but there is a strong relation between motorcyclists and veterans.






There was a bit of controversy about the priest below, because he was asked by a federal judge to remove a reference to Jesus Christ from his speech. He didn't comply. When he spoke the words ‘Jesus Christ’, most people attending cheered for several minutes.

Memphis day II

The disaster stories about the Mississippi flooding proved to be largely exaggerated. Some low-lying neighborhoods got flooded, which is of course disaster for the people who live there, but downtown was not affected. After Graceland, Sun Record Company was the other must see in Memphis. On Saturday July 18 1953, Elvis recorded the first of two double sided demo acetates. Since parking is relatively scare around the Sun Studios, we decided to be at Sun when the opened up at 9am.



The museum has an interesting collections of music memorabilia from the 20th century, like this chair used by B.B. King.


For the afternoon, we took a city tour to get a taste of the city. Interesting was the music scene in Beale street. In the early 1900s, Beale Street was filled with clubs, restaurants and shops, many of them owned by African-Americans. It was not until the 1980s that Beale Street was redeveloped which led to an economic revitalization with new clubs and attractions opening.



For a photographer luckily some of the old attractions are preserved.