The Machinery of Night

Friday, April 17, 2009

Posted 9:31 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Williams Tower

Williams Tower
Houston, TX
Jan, 2009

Again, not the best picture in the world, but it's different -- not a boring old spectacular sunset or rainbow.

We went down to the Williams Tower on a weekend, when the parking's free. Unfortunately, a lot of other people had the same idea, and it was too crowded for good pictures. (That's a great skyscraper site in the link, by the way.) I wanted to get some black and white shots of the Tower and the Waterwall opposite it. But nothing doing.

Labels: Foto Friday, Texas

Friday, June 13, 2008

Posted 6:31 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: ZaZa Galore

The ZaZa Hotel, lurking in the background on the left, has saved you from a truly dire title[1]. Here is an unlucky Foto Friday (which, luckily, was not posted on Friday).

Mecom-Rockwell Fountain and Colonnade
Houston, October 2007

According to this site, the columns were once part of the Miller Theatre [sic], "[a] classic Doric proscenium structure...[that] featured 20 Corinthian columns on either side of the stage." This opened in 1923. (NOTE: A Doric structure with Corinthian columns? How gauche! But they're not Corinthian -- not enough gunk on them.)

And then the Sixties were at our throats, and the present structure -- which looks like a hangar for diplodocuses, guarded by the annoyed, fossilized remains of a prehistoric Phyllis Diller -- was foisted upon the world.

I shall really have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find FFs from now on, as I don't have much scanned that is presentable, and I haven't been able to get my most recent stuff developed (have to send it to Kansas). Do try to endure.

[1] If lemonade is made from lemons, what is colonnade made from? :::::::::::::::::::

Labels: Foto Friday, Texas

Friday, May 02, 2008

Posted 7:12 AM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Bloch Fountain

To be technical, this is the fountain in the Richard and Annette Block Cancer Survivors Plaza in Houston:

Bloch Fountain
Houston, TX, Oct. 2007

I like this picture because it looks as if I'm trying to sneak up on the fountain, afraid to approach it. That was pretty much the case: there were other people crawling around the park that day, taking pictures inside the gazebo there, and I had to stand in one place to get a shot where they were hidden behind the columns. The large building in the background (Warwick Towers, according to Google Maps) kind of spoils the effect, but I could scarcely have it demolished. Not on such short notice, anyway.

If you're having trouble seeing the fountain, well, so was I. It's in there somewhere.

This is on the corner of Hermann Park, between the Mecom Fountain and the Natural History Museum.

It turns out that this is one of a chain, if you will, of parks dedicated to cancer survivors, set up by Richard Bloch. Read all about it here. Richard would be the R in H&R Bloch. There are 21 such parks (so far) scattered around the U.S., plus one in Canada. Start the virtual tour here. The descriptions each mention a computer -- noting where the computer is within the park -- but the purpose of the computer doesn't seem to be explained anywhere. I didn't see any computer; perhaps I didn't go into the gazebo, what with the plague of tourists. The Houston park surely must be the smallest of them (as suggested here, on what seems to be an earlier version of the park page -- some of the pictures are slightly different).

Check out the New Orleans park! Looks like the Rosicrucians have conquered Las Vegas. The Rancho Mirage park looks like an alien version of Disneyland ("PYRAMID POWER"). OK, now I want to collect the set, go to all those cities and photograph the parks. It would certainly give me something to do, should I ever be stuck in Indianapolis or Omaha.

Labels: Foto Friday, Texas

Friday, April 11, 2008

Posted 9:53 PM by Angie Schultz

Noontime in the Garden of White and Dark

If I weren't using the laptop, I'd know what this picture looks like. As it is, it changes every time I move my head. So it might suck. Deal.

Terry Hershey Park
Houston, December 2007

This is just a tree with some moss. I took a bunch of pictures in Hershey Park just before Christmas, using some filters I'd been acquiring over the fall. They didn't turn out as nicely as I'd hoped. According to my notes, this one was taken with a dark green X1 filter and a Nikon Soft 2. The X1 darkened the sky quite a bit but let the trunk and the leaves at the top shine bright white.

Houston doesn't boast a whole lot of stunning scenery. My present environs are a little different. I've been lugging my camera nearly everywhere recently; maybe in a few weeks I can post some local pictures.

Labels: Foto Friday, Texas

Friday, January 19, 2007

Posted 9:03 AM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: The Next Voice You Hear

Sunset in Houston, Texas, Summer 2006

When I was about ten or so, my parents went to bed one night and let my little sister and me stay up and watch TV by ourselves. We saw The Next Voice You Hear, a 1950 B-picture in which God takes over the radio waves.

I remember that there was a great deal of build-up and tension in the movie, with some people expecting a hoax, and others sure that Judgment Day had arrived. Unfortunately, I forget how it ends.

Anyhow, that night we went to bed a little spooked. We looked out the window to see a mysterious red glow in the eastern sky. It was far too early to be sunrise. Was it some kind of Sign?? What could it mean??

The next morning we told our parents all about it, and they were mightily unimpressed -- until they opened up the newspaper and found that there'd been a refinery fire in Illinois, on the other side of the river. Whew! No Sign, then.

Back to the photo: I don't know exactly when this was taken. I had a roll of film developed, and on it there were a few pictures that I know were taken on May 18, and some that were taken December 10, and in between there were around half a dozen of this sunset. I have a notebook for writing these things down, but I usually forget to do it. I vaguely remember that it came at the end of a day of storm, so it was probably summer instead of fall. Since summer lasts from about the end of April until the beginning of November here, the point is kind of moot.

[This week we're trying something new: Winter! An interesting experience. I'd blame Al Gore, but he's nowhere in sight.]

In the original of this picture there are some annoying bright lights which spoil the aesthetics. I've removed them, and darkened the front of the church, but I've done it with the "burn" tool (in accordance with ancient and accepted photography practice), rather than crude level-twiddling or cloning. That's for any photo purists out there who might inexplicably be reading this.

Labels: Foto Friday, Texas

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