Small Town Night Life

As of late, I've been exploring my small town at night. Armed with only my camera and the will to somehow make this one horse town look beautiful, out I go into the darkness hoping to find the shot that makes my night. 

Bowie is a little town that time forgot. It is about 30 miles from the Oklahoma border. With a  population of a little over 5 thousand, more people exist beneath the ground at Elmwood Cemetery than are walking around this place. 

Pictured above, is Smythe Street. It is one of our main downtown streets. Ironically enough, we do not have a "Main Street". The street is made of bricks which gives it a very interesting texture for night shots. If it were wet, even better, but I've yet to get out and do rain shots there. One of these nights, I shall. 

Sweet Boys Diner, above, is relatively new to Bowie. The family had previously owned a different restaurant and taken a small break when it burned down. Now, they are back with this diner smack dab in the middle of down town. I love what the neon sign has done to transform the look of Mason Street. 

Further down Mason Street, you will find Nostalgia. It's an Antiques store and old fashioned soda fountain. You can go inside there for a wonderful lunch and spend hours just looking around all the explosion of antiques wall to wall, ceiling to floor. 

My Favorite Austin Shot

I've been digging around through some older photos so that I can reprocess them with some of my newer tools. 
This is my very favorite Austin, Texas image ever. It is the Frost Bank Building and I think it's just beautiful at any time of day.
However this night, we came out of the Old Spaghetti Warehouse and it was just misting a little. The building was all lit up so pretty and the mist was illuminated by the lights. The streets were damp so they were all shiny and reflective. 
Too bad I only had my crappy little camera with me. But I still love this shot. And I hope you do too. 

Here is another shot of it in the daylight from a different street obviously. The Frost Bank Building is my favorite building. Period. 

When It All Goes Wrong

I was dragged all over hell and half of Georgia (that's one of them there Texas sayins  I reckon) by my youngest daughter yesterday afternoon looking for "weddin stuff" and I was determined to get some shots with my stupid little cell camera since all the antique stores in town have such unusual junk in them. 

The original of this old thing was not so hot, but I had a "vision" of what I wanted it to be. And I worked on it...for over an hour...maybe more. And it still sucks. But by Golly I'm gonna post it, because if I put that much time into it (and that IS alot of time for ME to spend on one photo) then I'm gonna post it. 

I know you won't enjoy this one. I actually hate it. But as I said...after that much time...here it is. 

Shot with a Droid Incredible and processed in CS5 with Nik. (I loooooove Nik!!)

Horton Motor Co., Nocona, Tx.

I went North last night to the great small town of Nocona, Texas.  While I was not actively going just to take pictures, I did take my camera and venture "downtown" in hopes that some of the newly renovated buildings might appeal to my love of night shots. 
As I turned a dark corner, I saw this shining from about a block away. I was far enough away that with my ....ahem...less than perfect vision, I couldn't really see what it was. I pondered as I waited for one lone car to get the hell out of my way, what could it be???
But this was not what I imagined. 
I plan to go back when it gets a bit warmer. And when I have a tripod and the wherewithal to use it. 
But meanwhile I just thought it was a pretty damn cool little place. 


I used CS5 and Nik to fix it up a little. 


Hope you enjoy it. :-)

Above It All

I took this picture from the restaurant in the Tower of the Americas in San Antonio. I was using some random crazy color thing on my tiny little sure shot Canon camera which is why all the buildings in the background appear orange. 
Me and the idiot enjoyed our dinner up there. We spent almost $150 bux on wine and steaks and beer but it was a great dinner. The mushrooms were to die for. 
Ahhhhh San Antonio!!! I miss you!!!

The Grass Skirt Goddess

Can't sleep, so figured I would randomly choose some little old photo that had not been processed and mess around with it. 


I decided to pick this little grass skirt goddess from the car show last year. She is just cute to me. There was a bunch of crap I didn't really care for cluttering up the corners on both sides so I thought "fine time to try out the whole square thing..."


I think she turned out ok. Might be cool to have her view of the world. But then again, maybe not. It would seem she is always looking where she has been and never seeing where she is going. Wow. Maybe that's why I like her. She's got the same plight as me.


Hang in there grass skirt goddess...We will figure it out. How hard could it be to just turn around???

The 365 Project Always Kicks My Ass

I live in the most horrible area of Texas to take pics in the winter. And that is if it's sunny and beautiful outside. Combine with that my illness of the past couple of weeks (possible pneumonia) and the fact that yesterday and today were rainy and cold and you have a recipe for disaster for the photographically challenged. 


I promised my pact buddy that I will shoot a pic every day. Every single day. And I have. But as I said, I'm challenged. 


This was tonight's concentrated effort at finding something half interesting inside my house. 


"Shipwrecked" is a pic of my little zen garden with a boat and some star fishies and some dirty sand that my granddaughter just loooooves to play in. 


Processed in Nik Color Efex 4 with Bleach Bypass and Vintage Film Efex.


Hope you enjoy. :)