Mural off Guadalupe St. Across from the UT campus.
I was on campus checking out the show of new acquisitions at the Humanities Research Center and afterwards I decided to take a walk down memory lane. The main drag near UT Austin is Guadalupe St., referred to by locals as.....The Drag. It's a series of restaurants, a book store, coffee shops, clothing stores and shops offering a wide array of weird UT stuff and services. Same but different from when I first came to school here in the Fall of 1974. I spent a lot of time on the drag. From 1974-1980, I went to the bookstores and hung out at Captain Quackenbush's Intergalactic Bakery and Coffee Shop, doing my homework; being a student. When I taught at UT, in the College of Fine Arts, the drag was the place we headed after class, mostly to have a beer or something at Les Amis Café, or to buy batteries for our cameras at the Co-op.
I haven't spent much time around campus lately but my stroll down the street let me know that, while the pages of the calendars have whipped by with ferocity, nothing has really changed. There is still an abundance of public art, lots of homeless people and tons of students. Back in the 1970's we were wearing sandals and tattered jeans and just hanging out. Now everyone has their head bowed and their eyes firmly on their phones as they move quickly, without ever making eye contact, down the street to their next appointment.
I spent some time photographing the murals and then I headed over toward the engineering buildings (I started my higher education at the electrical engineering school) to see what was new in that quadrant. That's when I came across the giant sculpture made up of canoes and flat bottom boats. A monumental and very interesting construction (see images below).
I had not intended to make my afternoon yet another shooting adventure but, of course, I rarely leave the house without some sort of camera flung over my shoulder so I just couldn't help clicking off a few frames. Here's a new assortment of Austin pix for you to enjoy. Sorry to inflict more clear, blue skies on you but that's just the kind of year we seem to be having....
A throw back transportation solution from an earlier time...
All images taken with insouciance and a Sony RX10ii camera.
I came home and had chocolate cake.
What fun.
Take a class: Become more skilled and knowledgable. Have more fun.
One of the original Craftsy Photo Classes and
still one of the best!
I met Lance a couple of weeks ago in Denver
and found him to be really fun and knowledgeable
this class reflects what he teaches in hands-on
workshops in Ireland and Iceland, as well as
cool places around the U.S.
How to make what we shoot into a cohesive
train of visual thought.
I love the canoe art. My parents bought an Old Town Tripper in the early 1970s and it was one of the first fiberglass and foam canoes that really put a dent in the popularity of the classic Grumman aluminum canoes. Aluminum is likely better for art but it's not as good at slipping over rocks or springing back into shape after hitting something.
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