For Weekend 1 of the Photo 101 course it was suggested that we “Experiment with Composition” using a Gallery of photos. During our time off from the daily assignments, things to explore included capturing establishing wide-angle shots considering foreground and background, compare horizontal and vertical versions of the same scene, and using a “Rule of Thirds” grid to place our subjects.
I decided to take photos of lake views since it was a fabulous sunny warm day after many cloudy days with rain. I rode around the area and tried to capture some selected views. Lake Travis will be 100% full again by the end of this week! The last time it was full was 6 years ago in 2010, and it’s actually risen about 60 feet since last spring. It’s wonderful living at the lake, and it’s great that it’s back.
I tried several different horizontal and vertical shots. Generally I think the horizontal ones highlighted the water the most, although the vertical ones captured interesting combinations of foreground and background like live oak trees, boats, houses on the hillside, etc.
Our Day 5 assignment of the Photo 101 course was “Solitude & the Rule of Thirds”, which focuses on how we interpret the state of being alone, a solitary subject, or a lonely and uninhabited place. We also explore the Rule of Thirds for composing our shots by placing the subject at the intersection of horizontal and vertical lines separating the nine parts of a photo grid. Or if we break that rule, use it as a guide to make the composition more interesting.
I love to travel, and certain places make you feel alone, yet connected to everything. Here are several photos that capture that feeling for me, taken with my iPhone 5 using the standard Camera app.
These were taken during a trip to Big Bend National Park in February 2013, and combine the solitude of golf, hiking, and desert. We stayed at Lajitas Resort and played Black Jack’s Crossing golf course which meanders in the desert adjacent to the Rio Grande river with the Mexican mountains on the other side.
This was a wonderful visit and you really get a sense of solitude in places like Big Bend. I love playing golf and usually enjoy the peaceful relaxing feeling (when it’s not very busy) just enjoying the surroundings. However, in this setting it’s even more spectacular because the place is so remote and there are so few people around in spite of all the marvelous scenery.
In the first photo, the flag pole is aligned with the vertical “third” line, with the lake and mountain horizon aligned along the horizontal “third” line, making for an engaging photo. Also notice the flag shadow and how close my approach shot got to the pin.
The photo with the scenic golf tee shot shows how the golf course layout was embedded within its natural surroundings, with the Rio Grande river visible along the horizontal “third” line beyond the green. The other shot highlights more of the Mexican mountains with the Rio Grande focused at the intersection of the horizontal and vertical “third” lines with the golf fairway aligned along the lower horizontal “third” line.
The final view shows the view while hiking inside Santa Elena Canyon on the Texas border with Mexico. There’s a wonderful feeling of solitude there as you look up at the opening to the sky along the steep narrow vertical canyon walls. It’s extremely cool on the floor of the canyon, and its very bright as you look up from the darkness. I thought the reflection in the water on the lower “third” line draws your eye there, which shows the upper canyon wall and sky quite vividly.
Black Jack’s Crossing Golf Course
Scenic Golf Tee Shot
Rio Grande on Mexican border
Santa Elena Canyon
More photos to come with my gallery of lake views over the weekend.
Our Day 4 assignment of the Photo 101 course was “Bliss & Captions”, which focuses on our image of bliss. Also, we experiment with Captions and additional image metadata fields like Title, Alt Text, and Description.
Bliss represents perfect happiness, great joy, and total relaxation. For me, I think of music. I love music! Discovering new music. Listening to all kinds of music. Sharing music via my blog, which now has over 800 music posts.
I feel music, and it makes me happy (mostly). Sometimes music can be very emotional. Certain music brings tears because it’s so beautiful (or sad). Some music makes me feel like dancing. Other music is just simply pure joy. I have tinnitus (ringing in my ears) and music is good therapy. Music is very relaxing, especially solo piano.
As I mentioned in an earlier post about learning Midsummer Night by Brian Crain, I would like to learn to play piano (again). Last year, I was very fortunate to be able to attend four Whisperings concerts at Kendra and Michael Logozar’s house, including guest artists Christine Brown, Tim Neumark, Darla Bower, and Altimirano.
I asked him for a suggestion about which of his songbooks would be good for me to try to learn, and he thought his 2014 album Dreams from Afar would be easier than his others. So that gives me some other music to practice learning such as Your Smile, and maybe then Finding Hope (although the entire album is great).
Here are photos of my Yamaha piano and Michael’s music for my daily dose of bliss, taken with my iPhone 5 using the standard Camera app.
Piano Keyboard – Middle C
Dreams from Afar
Solo Piano Songbook
Your Smile – Sheet music
I have also included the album if you would like to listen to hear what it should sound like if I get it right.
Dreams from Afar by Michael Logozar (2014) – 12 songs, 42 mins
Our Day 3 assignment of the Photo 101 course was “Water & Orientation”, which focuses on our relationships to and stories about water. Also, we experiment with the orientation to see whether horizontal or vertical work better.
I live on Lake Travis northwest of Austin, Texas. It’s actually just one of seven lakes established along the Colorado River. It’s one of two reservoir lakes which are primarily intended for water storage and recreation. The others are “constant-level” where they control the water height so levels don’t rise or fall by selectively releasing water from their dams as appropriate, which makes it attractive for houses and other lakeside amenities. There’s Lake Buchanan, Inks Lake, Lake LBJ, Lake Marble Falls, Lake Travis, Lake Austin, and Lady Bird Lake.
Finally, it is almost full again (97%) after many years of extreme drought where it got very low. After the tremendous extended rains during May 2015, as well as the recent El Nino rains over the past several months, amazingly it has actually filled back up. We have a wonderful view of the lake with many large windows on the back side of our house as well as a full-width deck. But for many years, we can hardly see the water any more, and it didn’t help that the trees have grown higher too. However, now we can really see the water once more, and it makes such a difference. It’s especially beautiful at sunset many evenings when the sun goes down, with various pretty effects depending on cloud configuration, etc.
Unfortunately, we’re having several days of rain again. But I decided to take my water photos of the lake and rain anyway, since so often I tend to take them when it’s sunny. So I thought this might be interesting. Most of my photos captured the lake horizontally since that way you see more of it, but I did try different views (left, middle, right). Also tried to get several pictures during the rain around the deck, where it’s obvious that it’s wet. I cropped several of them to make them more interesting and to eliminate unnecessary stuff. You probably can’t see the rain drops, although it was a nice steady slow rain all day.
It’s great living here and so nice to have a view of the water. I’m not sure what it is, but it tends to make you feel more peaceful, calm, and relaxed. We haven’t really taken advantage of being at the lake that much other than swimming, since we don’t have a boat. However, we keep intending on going kayaking, although it was so low for so long, we thought there might be more risks until it filled up to normal levels again (which is has). So now I can we just need to do it.
I visited local swimming pools and the beaches in South Jersey when I was growing up, and always enjoyed the water. My wife also loves the water since she grew up at the Central Jersey shore and went to the beach almost every day in the summer. We had a swimming pool in our back yard when we lived in the Dallas area for about 27 years, and that was wonderful. She and our boys (and often our neighbors) would enjoy it. We decided not to put a pool in our current house, especially since we’re at the lake.
The photos in this gallery were taken with my iPhone 5 using the standard Camera app. More photos tomorrow…
Our Day 2 assignment of the Photo 101 course was “Street & Establishing Shot”, which focuses on a wide-angle street scene.
I captured several interesting street scenes during a visit to Philadelphia in 2010 – Urban Landscape, Cheesesteaks, South Philly Musicians, and Chinatown. The photos were taken with my father’s point-and-shoot Canon PowerShot A400 camera. I might not have had an iPhone at that point.
Our Urban Landscape
This first photo suddenly jumps out at you when we encountered it during our drive through South Philadelphia. This wall mural called Our Urban Landscape was originally painted in 2006, and then restored in 2014 (after my photo).
It is a colorful collage of neighborhood residents, landmarks, and foods, which is painted on the side of the Colligas Family Shop Rite at Front and Snyder. The large faces of the people stand out in the foreground with everything else in the background. See an updated photo on the web site for the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program.
Cheesesteaks
Pat’s King of Steaks, self-proclaimed “inventor of cheesesteak”, has offered classic versions of Philly’s favorite sandwich since 1930 at 9th & Wharton Streets in Philadelphia (where Passyunk and Wharton meet). Because of their popularity and high volume, the line moves very quickly so you need to be prepared.
It’s located right opposite Geno’s Steaks, it’s long-time rival since 1966 with a constant battle 24 hours a day for the title of best cheesesteak. There’s an interesting article about Authentic Philly Cheesesteaks on the Philadelphia official visitor site, including tips on how to order, like “one whiz wit(h)”. And yes, Cheez Whiz is the most popular topping. Here the Pat’s Steaks sign is in the foreground, with the buildings in the background. In fact, that wall mural with a clock behind Pat’s is my next photo.
South Philly Musicians
Across from the world-famous Pat’s King of Steaks is a towering tribute to seven of South Philly’s music and film stars. This wall mural has huge portraits of Bobby Rydell, Frankie Avalon, Chubby Checker, Fabian, Eddie Fisher, Al Martino, and DJ Jerry Blavat. It was created at this Ninth Street and Passyunk Avenue location in 2005, but now is chipped, faded, and crumbling, apparently damaged by roof leaks.
The Mural Arts Program had planned to paint it over for a “dignified retirement”, especially with a proposed four-story development for the lot next door that would block the mural. but the whitewashing plan was scrubbed so see if it could possibly be moved to another wall somewhere. Apparently donations by Frankie Avalon and Jerry Blavat for the restoration project may result in a revamped mural in the fall of 2016, possibly with the additional of James Darren and Charlie Gracie. Again the musicians (and clock) occupy the foreground with a street scene in the background.
Chinatown
As we were driving around, we ventured into Chinatown, which had lots of interesting street scenes. Here’s one view of the street with several restaurants (and signs) in the foreground and buildings as the background.
Our Day 1 assignment of the Photo 101 course was “Home”, which reminds me of some of the places where I have lived.
I was born at St. Nicholas Hospital in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, which was my first home (very briefly). Now it has been converted into an affordable apartment housing complex for senior residents.
My parents loved me all my life. These photos of my mother and father were taken when they were married during the last year of World War II. She’s almost 96 in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s, but he died 3 years ago.
I was blessed to have a wonderful family with two brothers and two sisters. We grew up in a small house and my father raised the back roof for more bedrooms as our family grew.
After marriage and 4 years in the Air Force, we lived in a townhouse in New Jersey . Our 2 boys initially grew up there before moving near Dallas, Texas. There was a nice common area with playground and swimming pool near an elementary school.
Now we’re very lucky to be retired and living on the north shore of Lake Travis near Austin in the Texas hill country. It’s very comfortable in a quiet community which is close enough to our grandchildren as well as downtown when we want to visit. We have two lovely golf courses and tennis courts nearby which we love to play. There’s quite a bit of wildlife in our backyard to watch like white-tailed deer, hummingbirds, squirrels, birds, butterflies, etc.
We have a wonderful view from our deck where I captured this panoramic iPhone photo of a morning rainbow at breakfast after a light rain several years ago when the lake was very low. At least the recent El Nino rains have filled it back up again to about 97% full.
I will be sharing more photos with daily assignments over the next couple of weeks.
This is my final fifth post for the Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge.
Thanks to Terri at Perspectives On… for nominating me for this challenge. I had been planning to try some photo challenge blogging events recently, but hadn’t quite to started yet so this little nudge helps.
We were reading a article in the October 2014 issue of the Texas Co-op Power magazine from Pedernales Electric Cooperative, which is our electric utility in the Texas Hill Country: The Wheel of History: Volente’s Anderson Mill. It sounded very interesting and is very close to where we live, on Volente Road off Anderson Mill Road near the intersection with Bullick Hollow (2222), although we had not visited it since we moved her almost eight years ago now. So we decided to check it out on a nice Sunday afternoon back in October, but I never got around to post the photos on my blog so this seemed like a good opportunity to get that done.
This Anderson Mill is a replica of a gristmill that was built by Thomas Anderson in the 1850’s on Cypress Creek; it was completed in 1965 and dedicated to his granddaughter. As you can see in the photos, the water wheel sit works and it even drives a grinder which you can see inside the door of the wooden building. They actually use it to grind corn into cornmeal in bags that you can buy; we got one for ourselves that we used to make cornbread muffins from a recipe that was included, and gave another to my sister and a friend.
Apparently, the mill was used for making gunpowder during the Civil War, but it then changed over to grinding corn and other uses after the war ended. There a lots of artifacts on shelfs and the walls inside the building but they posted that no photos should be taken; also there is another associated stone building nearby where they had many displays about life from that period on both floors. I was able to capture the water splashing off the water wheel from the back of the building as well a plain shot without water from the front side. The grounds are very pleasant, and there another building used by the Garden Club where they quilts on display for sale. It is only open one Sunday every month, but it’s an interesting place to visit.
The Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge rules require you to post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or simply a short paragraph – it’s entirely up to you.
Then each day, nominate another blogger to carry on this challenge. Accepting the challenge is entirely up to the person nominated, it is not a command. And actually everyone can join in. So feel free to if you like the idea.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised that I have received responses for my challenge invitations. Julia at Julia’s Odyssey accepted my challenge in my Day One post on Lake Texas Water Levels. My Day Two challenge to Elizabeth at Tea and Paper in my post on SXSW @ The Dogwood was also accepted. Then Kay at Sky Blue Daze responded to my invitation in my Day Three post on Becker Vineyards – Feb; she indicated her participation would be later since she’s going on vacation where there is no internet for blogging access. For the challenge in my Day Four post on World War II Pinup Nose Art, I notice that Sandi at Sappy as a Tree has not be very active lately so maybe she will participate sometime later when she has the time.
I would like to invite Joan at Retirement and Beyond to join the party. I have enjoyed her blog since Photography 101, especially her photos of Ireland, travel, and scenery. She also seems to like participating in photo challenges so it seemed she might be a good candidate to join this challenge. As mentioned before, it is totally up to you to accept this challenge.
This is my fourth post for the Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge. Hopefully this offends nobody, but it’s a historical reflection of attitudes regarding wartime nose art about 70 years ago.
Thanks to Terri at Perspectives On… for nominating me for this challenge. I had been planning to try some photo challenge blogging events recently, but hadn’t quite to started yet so this little nudge helps.
It has pleasantly surprised me that I have received responses for all my challenge invitations. Julia at Julia’s Odyssey accepted my challenge in my Day One post on Lake Texas Water Levels. Elizabeth at Tea and Paper accepted my Day Two challenge in my post on SXSW @ The Dogwood. Yesterday, Kay at Sky Blue Daze responded to my invitation in my post on Becker Vineyards – Feb; she said her participation would be later since she’s going on vacation where there is no internet for blogging access.
Hal Olsen
Hal Olsen was the last World War II Nose Artist who lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is my wife’s first cousin once removed – the son of her maternal grandfather’s brother (or her mother’s uncle’s son). He was a U.S. Navy aviation mechanic for autopilots who also worked at Los Alamos National Lab as an artist for official bomb designs.
He painted over 100 nose art pin-up ladies on various planes in the Pacific Theater of Operations during his stint with the US Navy during World War II on Tinian in the Northern Mariana Islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, now a U.S. territorial commonwealth. He charged $50 per painting and it because so popular that he made enough money for a honeymoon when he got married, as well as paying for art school. He was doing about two a day during the period from June – August 1945 (right around the time that I was born).
He painted his nose art on over 100 PB4Y-1 (Navy version of B-24) and B-29 Superfortress bombers while stationed on Tinian island; they appeared in the first color issue of the National Geographic magazine. Some of his most famous paintings were on the Enola Gay and Bochscar, which were the B-29 bombers involved in the atomic bomb drops on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 that ended the war six days later after the Japanese surrendered. The final painting he made was Enola Gay because the Air Force “wanted her done right”. He had also painted a B-29 bomber named “Up-an-Atom” that became the title of his book.
Up an’ Atom
My oldest son wanted Hal’s book “Up an’ Atom” (2012) for Christmas. It’s an autobiography which covers the golden age of nose art in World War. We had Hal autograph it for him. There was no color film at that time, so photos were black and white. However, the fifteen best photos were recreated on canvas for the book. Although he painted most of the women in the nude, he requested that they be modified and clothed for inclusion in the book. The originals can be seen in their original state at the Commemorative Air Force (CAF) Airpower Museum in Midland, Texas.
You can find his Up an’ Atom book at the Amazon web site.
Portraits of War
The Portraits of War Wordpress blog shows several autographed photos that Hal sent to Brennan Gauthier for his WWII Nose Art – Hal Olsen, the Last Living WWII Nose Artist post, including Lady Luck II, Green Cherries, Accentuate the Positive, and Gear Down.
The Commemorative Air Force (CAF) was founded to acquire, restore and preserve in flying condition a complete collection of combat aircraft which were flown by all military services of the United States, and selected aircraft of other nations, for the education and enjoyment of present and future generations of Americans. More than just a collection of airworthy warplanes from the past, the CAF’s fleet of historic aircraft, known as the CAF Ghost Squadron, recreate, remind and reinforce the lessons learned from the defining moments in American military aviation history. It now contains over 160 aircraft.
CAF Airpower Museum
The CAF Airpower Museum, formerly American Airpower Heritage Museum, at the Commemorative Air Force headquarters is located at 9600 Wright Drive in Midland, Texas. Besides restoring and preserving World War II-era combat airplanes, it’s preserving the complete history of World War II military aviation and the memory of the men and women who built, serviced and flew the historic military aircraft of World War II. It is recognized for its collection of authentic World War II artifacts and memorabilia including uniforms of Allied and Axis countries, armament, photographs, weapons, and equipment. It is affiliated with the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.
Its exhibits tell the complete story of World War II military aviation, from the prelude of World War II to the Atomic Bomb. The exhibits cover the war in the Pacific, strategic bombing, D-Day, and the atomic age. They also feature the American Combat Airman Hall of Fame, 507th Fighter Group gallery, and Nose Art Gallery..
Here’s a very brief video overview of the CAF Airpower Museum.
“CAF Airpower Museum – Overview” – 1 min 48 sec
Nose Art Gallery
The Aviation Nose Art Gallery is the largest collection in the world, recognized by the White House Millennium Council and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. It includes 34 very rare original Nose Art panels that represent the artistic expressions of young men at war. They cut the panels from fuselages of World War II aircraft as they were being scrapped after the war.
Easy Maid is easily one of the most recognizable pieces in the collection and was painted by the world’s last nose art artist, Hal Olsen.
Hear Hal’s story of how and why he painted this and many other Nose Art images during World War II.
CAF Airpower Museum – Hal Olsen (2013) – 2 min
Easy Maid
The Save the Girls project website was established to preserve, restore, and display the world’s largest collection of World War II aircraft nose art.
Hal’s Easy Maid image on a PB4Y-1 Navy bomber is included in the Nose Art Gallery. Click on the thumbnail for background information or the larger image.
Summary
He’s a very nice, talented guy, and I wanted to share his unique story. We have several watercolor paintings hanging on walls in our house that he graciously gave us (not nose art nudes, but landscape and beach scenes). I hope you found this interesting and liked the photos and information about nose art.
The Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge rules require you to post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or simply a brief paragraph—it’s entirely up to you.
Then each day, nominate another blogger to carry on this challenge. Accepting the challenge is entirely up to the person nominated, it is not a command. And actually everyone can join in, and you can too if you like the idea.
I would like to invite Sandi at Sappy as a Tree to join the party. I have known her since Blogging 101 and Photography 101, and she has been a frequent commenter on my blog. I’ve enjoyed following her blog, and she follows me as well. Although not as active, I thought she might be a good candidate to join this challenge, anyway. As mentioned before, it is totally up to you to accept this challenge.
This is my third post for the Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge.
Thanks to Terri at Perspectives On… for nominating me for this challenge. I had been planning to try some photo challenge blogging events recently, but hadn’t quite to started yet so this little nudge helps. Julia at Julia’s Odyssey accepted my challenge in my Day One post on Lake Texas Water Levels. Yesterday, Elizabeth at Tea and Paper also responded to my Day Two challenge from my post on SXSW @ The Dogwood.
In February, we picked up our wine club package from Becker Vineyards in Stonewall, Texas. We get 3 bottles quarterly in February, May, September, and December. This time it contained a Zinfindel, “Inverno” (Merlot/Cabernet), and Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve.
We also enjoyed a free wine tasting with Chenin Blanc, Prairie Rotie, Malbec Reserve, Tempranillo Reserve, Raven, and Zinfandel, as well as a complimentary Merlot Reserve. These pickup parties include live music as well as snacks such as crackers, cheeses, meatball in marinara, green olives, black olive bread chunks, nuts, etc.
There was also handmade chocolate truffles and barks from Delysia Chocolatier in Austin, as well as nuts from Al’s Gourmet Nuts in San Antonio. I had a free sample of the Raspberry Chocolate Truffle, and there were lots more available to purchase.
Out trip down to the Fredericksburg area is always pleasant. It’s so nice to take drives out in the hill country, and we usually enjoy getting German food at one of the many restaurants in Fredericksburg too.
It’s interesting that in February there are skunks splattered all of the highways which have been hit by cars (and you can smell them too). Apparently, it’s their mating season and coming out at night on 70 mph roads ends their search for a mate rather quickly. Also, you often see the large turkey vultures scavenging for the dead animals like skunks (or deer).
I captured several photos during out visit. There is building with all the windows on the side which houses the barrel room where they sometimes also have had tastings. However this year they have it in the main tasting room of the main building, where I have some inside shots (but didn’t get the outside). They have a lavender farm behind the winery where they have a Lavender Festival every year in May. You can see lots of lavender products displays on the wall near the tasting bar.
Out in front of the veranda and patio there is a cute old small house that once was used for guests to stay (but not any longer). There is interesting tall windmill right near there too. There are also photos of the package, bottles, and wine club newsletter descriptions below., including a windmill, House, Tasting Room, and Goodies.
It was a fun day, and I their wine is very good. I also hope you liked the photos.
The Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge rules require you to post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or simply a short paragraph – it’s entirely up to you.
Then each day, nominate another blogger to carry on this challenge. Accepting the challenge is entirely up to the person nominated, it is not a command. And actually everyone can join in. So feel free to if you like the idea.
I would like to invite Kay at Sky Blue Daze to join the party. She was another participant in Photography 101 during November 2014. I’ve enjoyed following her blog, and I thought she might be a good candidate to join this challenge. As mentioned before, it is totally up to you to accept this challenge.
This is my second post for the Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge.
Thanks to Terri at Perspectives On… for nominating me for this challenge. I had been planning to try some photo challenge blogging events recently, but hadn’t quite to started yet so this little nudge helps. Yesterday Julia at Julia’s Odyssey accepted my challenge in my Day One post on Lake Texas Water Levels.
Last Wednesday I went to a day party at The Dogwood for the South by Southwest (SXSW) Music Festival here in Austin, Texas. These are some photos I took for several bands I watched perform there. I will also be creating some music posts for the bands that I heard over the next several days, and then I will update this post with those links too.
The weather was lovely that day in the mid-70’s so it was a great day to be out enjoying the music downtown (with thousands of others). Since it was also Spring Break for my grandkids, we agreed to have them at our house for a sleepover from Friday – Sunday. It was supposed to rain then anyway, although we did get some breaks in the rain to play some tennis with them and go to the park for a while. I didn’t want to go listen to more music and leave my wife alone with them for several days. I also decided to skip going on Thursday for a break before the kids arrived.
The Dogwood
This was the Guitartown/Conqueroo Kickoff 2015 Party at The Dogwood on 6th Street. It featured alt-country and Americana music all day, but I only stayed for about 3 hours. There were two stages available, where the bands performed in alternate half-hour sets. After watching outside on the patio, you could go inside (which was air conditioned) for the next band, etc. Right next to the outdoor stage was all this cactus that I thought might make an interesting shot, although it didn’t really turn out that good after cropping out all the heads in front of me.
I didn’t get going earlier like I had planned after getting a call from the assisted living facility where my mom lives. I needed to stop at Walmart to pick up some more underwear since she was out and they were borrowing from other residents. When I dropped them off, I noticed that she was sleeping in a chair in the living room (right after lunch) so I decided not to wake her up to visit that day since I didn’t want be even later than I was. It takes me about an hour to drive to downtown Austin, so I didn’t get there until about 2:30 pm. Luckily I was able to find a parking space on the street not too far from the venue which had a 5-hour time limit.
Day Party
I saw singer/songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard from Wimberley, Texas at 3:00 outside, Aaron Lee Tasjan from New Albany, Ohio at 3:30 inside, American Aquarium from Raleigh, North Carolina at 4:00 outside, The Mastersons from Brooklyn, New York at 4:30 inside, and Bill Carter & Will Sexton from Austin at 5:00 outside. Here are several photos that I took during their performances.
Ray Wylie Hubbard
Aaron Lee Tasjan
American Aquarium
The Mastersons
Bill Carter & Will Sexton
Street Scene
I walked down 6th Street to take in the unique “music everywhere” atmosphere. Lots of interesting people watching with so many different people (and styles) from all over the world. I started receiving low battery warnings from my iPhone 5 so unfortunately I had to give up the idea of taking more photos since it was completely drained before dinner, and I didn’t have any place to use my charger. I guess I need to figure out what’s draining my battery so quickly or else get some battery booster so I can at least get through the day, especially while traveling.
SXSW 6th Street Crowd
SXSW 2015 Banner
Moonshine
I had dinner at the Moonshine Patio Bar & Grill where I had Green Chili Macaroni with grilled chicken, corn bisque, and bacon gratin (shown below), along with complimentary jalapeño corn bread, and a glass of wine. Check out their photo gallery slideshow which highlights their menu and atmosphere, which features “an innovative take on classic American comfort food”.
Evening Showcases
Also I went to the official SXSW evening showcases at 18th Over Austin on the top floor of the Hilton Garden Inn with table seating and large windows behind the musicians and all around the room for great views at sunset and nighttime of the city.
At 8:00 I saw Alice Phoebe Lou from South Africa and now Berlin, Germany. See my folk music post for Alice Phoebe Lou which includes her music, videos, and links. Then at 9:00 folk singer/songwriter Joan Shelley from Louisville, Kentucky performed, and finally at 10:00 folk pop singer/songwriter Jenn Grant from Prince Edward Island, Canada and now based in Halifax, Nova Scotia came on. I decided it was probably my time to leave so I could get home by midnight.
It was a fun day, and I enjoyed the music. I also hope you liked the photos.
The Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge rules require you to post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or simply a short paragraph – it’s entirely up to you.
Then each day, nominate another blogger to carry on this challenge. Accepting the challenge is entirely up to the person nominated, it is not a command. And actually everyone can join in. So feel free to if you like the idea.
I would like to invite Elizabeth at Tea and Paper to join the party. She was another participant in Photography 101 during November 2014 when I received comments on my photos from her. I also notice she likes poetry, which I have tried recently during Poetry 101. Since she seems to like photography too, I thought that she might be a good candidate to join this challenge. Also, I appreciate that she mentioned that my blog gave her inspiration. As mentioned before, it is totally up to you to accept this challenge.
Warren Web 