Part 2. Cold, rain-soaked day continues on S. Congress Ave. Sadly, I passed up several good mannequin opportunities.... But...Holiday stuff galore.

I climbed out of the pool, dried off and got dressed and then headed out to the car. I took one last photograph at Barton Springs Pool just to show its proximity to downtown and I felt lucky to get a flying bird into the shot. I think it's a duck. I'm not sure...

I'm a bit bored by the street scenes in downtown and nobody's made much of an effort to dress it up for the holidays so I thought I try my street shooter luck over on currently trendy S. Congress Ave. On the other side of the river from the Capitol and the big downtown convention hotels. Seems it was too cold and wet for either the tourists, the shoppers or the street people today. But that's okay by me since there's always something new to look at and the square perspective and limited depth of field combo I was playing with today kept it fresh enough for me. 

Again, everything was photographed with the Leica SL (which has a stated IP52 weather resistant rating: don't try this with your Sony or Nikon. You have no idea what water and dust intrusion resistance their camera "might" have....).  I was using the TTArtisan 50mm lens I wrote about in the previous blog post. It's not rated as weather resistant so I wrapped a small slice of electrical tape around the mating of the lens and camera mounts. Seemed to work fine at resisting moisture. And by 11 or so the rain was less ..... spitty. 

Also, a shout out to Timberline waterproof boots. Nice on the foot and dry as a desert inside. Today? Black to go with the gray pants.... and dark gray hat. 

On this shot I'm working right down at the close focusing minimum with the 50mm.

Even at f1.1 the center area and, indeed, all the areas that are in the plane of focus

are adequately sharp.

Yeah. I don't get it either. But I find it somehow "charming". 

this is the front of Home Slice Pizza on S. Congress Ave. I included it because 

I found some really cool painted murals in the their parking lot and wanted to give

them a shout out. Unfortunately, lately Blogger has decided to randomize the order

 in which it displays my photos so the fun stuff follows this positioning/establishing 

shot. C'est la Vie. 

Love, love, love this mural (the one on the left!) since I actually saw Janis Joplin perform once 

at the Vulcan Gas Company (early Austin club) when I was too young to buy beer. The mural 

is well done in that Roy Lichtenstein comic books style. And the joke, of course is that

it's in the parking lot of one of Austin's most beloved pizza joints. 

Wonderful. 

this is the logo on the door of a newish seafood restaurant called Del Mar. 

The building used to house S. Congress Café.  I shot a bunch of food for the former

restaurant. It was one of the early digital shoots with the Kodak DCS 760 camera. 

Slow going.... And more than a few reboots. 

I love the logo because it combines a cute girl, who is a mermaid, and also sports 

a cowboy hat. The upside down fish on a spear tops it off.

And it seems now that every other store on S. Congress Ave. is now a high end hat shop.

The alternate shops are expensive cowboy boot shops. But not the boots you'd wear to work 

in the field everyday. Nope. More like the cowboy boots you only wear when you go out 

dancing at clubs. Or you're trying to look "native." 

On the ground. Actually, the sidewalk. I bought a bottle of this when I was in Reykjavik. 

It tasted like almost every other Vodka I've tried...

All the trees and tree decor are from The Austin Motel. 

They did an amazing job of decorating this year. Makes me smile.

My fingers started getting cold and I'd forgotten to bring along gloves ( or mittens? ) so I headed home and marveled at the difference in traffic from last, late December to this one. So much more crowded on the roads this year. I hope the people in all those cars are shopping locally and spending some cash to keep our economy from falling into recession. I'm always happier when things are going well..

More to come. Please keep reading and consider using my affiliate links...  Oh, that's right. We don't have any. Maybe you could leave a lovely comment instead. 

Happy Holidays!