Olympus 12-100mm view #1321, the skywalk from the convention center to the Fairmont Hotel in downtown Austin, Texas.

After lumbering around Austin in the heat with a big Nikon full frame camera and an even more solid  lens it was a relief to cruise around at the end of last week with the other part of my Jekyll and Hyde camera collection, the Panasonic GH5 and the Olympus 12-100mm lens. I could have reduced the burden further by switching lenses and using the pixie-like Panasonic 42.5mm f1.7 but following that logic I could have saved even more space and weight by just taking along my iPhone....

I love walking almost as a I love swimming. Not only is walking a great exercise but a good walk is a good excuse to grab a camera and just go out to look at stuff. Or, grabbing a camera and going out to find new photos is a great excuse to go for a walk. Either way it's a nice process by which to lower your blood pressure.

Sometimes I think I'm being a bit too compulsive, walking the same route most weeks, and that might be true in a slow growing,  sleepy city that doesn't change much, but Austin's downtown changes weekly, sometimes daily. When I miss a week and then resume walking through downtown the next week I'll often find a flattened field which had been home to a multi-story building that had sat on that lot for decades. Two weeks beyond that I'll find an excavation of enormous proportions, made in preparation for yet another skyscraper.  I walked around the convention center last week just to see the completed skyway between the center and the new(ish) Fairmont Hotel. The shot above is a detail of the steel netting that replaces traditional railings.

It's all interesting to me.

Every once in a while I look into a folder from five or then years ago and find images of open fields which are now jam-packed with new high rises. Here's a shot (below) looking toward the Seaholm Power Plant, which is now which is now bracketed by 20+ story residence towers and retail shopping centers.

Walking through the constructions and the new business openings is one way to stay connected to my current city and not wedded to my nostalgic vision of what the city was 20 or 30 years ago...