Photobook 4/13/24:

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It's been a week. I arrived in Dallas only a week ago, and now I'm driving to Houston. Family has some commitments, and I'm the only available driver. I have 4 hours to explore Houston on my own, similar to my last trip to San Antonio.


Herman Park - 8:50 CST

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Off to a good start.

I packed some gear, but only used my Panasonic 25mm ƒ1.7 for the challenge and lightness. I was lucky I had left this early, as Houston's weather had not kicked-in yet.


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A nice looking hill.

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The only other photo with a person in it.

Herman Park is more National Mall-ish than the actual Texas Capitol Mall. It's a really pleasant place.

The Metro was not as pleasant, both ticket machines didn't work, so I used their app. Although, this wouldn't have mattered anyway, since no one checked my ticket.


Downtown - 9:30 CST

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If I had a nickel for every time I took a photowalk in a city and came back with an unintentionally phallic photograph, I'd have two nickels.

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This buliding looks painfull.

I got off at Bell station since it had a nice view of the city, I continued walking down Main. I really wanted to explore the tunnel system Houston has, but it's not open on the weekends.

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The city from Main Street Square.

I got tired of just photos of buildings, so I turned it into a game. Find as many objects, buildings, or other things that fit together if framed right.

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A puzzle with 1001 Fannin.

This is such a fun and satisfying thing to do, I'm surprised I haven't seen more photographers try it. It's a fun exercise in being hyper-observant.

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Rebulding.

I got what I could on Main, I then turned on to Rusk Street.


Pennzoil Place - 9:50 CST

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Another puzzle.

For some reason, Pennzoil Place looks great from any angle. I took the most photos of this building.

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“We have Szobel at home.”

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webbuilderstockimage.jpeg

I am not a 'people' street photographer, I prefer trying to find some sort of concept to capture. Since I now qualify as a “Country Bumpkin going to the Big City”, I did my best to express the startling scale of everything. I got to doing more of that later on, next I looked at the little things.


Scaling down, and underground - 10:00 CST

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Very shiny car.

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Bug in the door.

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Rings.

It's nice to look at all the tiny details of a city, all theses small pieces of art often overlooked. Someone somewhere spent a lot of time designing a drain, lets care about that.

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The sound of a YouTube sports clip echos though these hallways.

I did take a brief detour into the tunnels, but as expected, everything was locked up.


JPMorgan Chase Tower - 10:15 CST

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Tall shadows.

Back to scale, the JPMorgan Chase Tower is (at the time of writing) the tallest tower in Texas. It can also be technically considered the tallest pentagonal building in the world.

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Infinite windows.

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IDK, the dust adds to the vibe.

I've never seen a building this tall before, I'm used to the short and stubby buildings of other Texas cities. I did my best to capture the escaping height from my prospective. It's also an building , for it’s impressive size, it’s quite bland. I'm glad I had the morning sun on my side to at least add some depth to it.



TC Energy Center - 10:25 CST

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A spiky building.

In hindsight, skyscrapers as a concept are bizarre.

These buildings are absurdly large pieces of art - with a complex series of purposes. Sure, you can be cynical about it, a company has no better way to express expedience, wealth, and dominance.

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Shell, you're totally cheating with that spire.

Heck, most buildings in Houston were built for banks or energy corporations. However, the amount of human collaboration which goes into creating something at this scale is incredible.

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Another incredibly sharp looking building.

There's a weird, complex beauty in a city, from the immense structures, to a simple storm drain.



Houston Theatre District - 10:35 CST

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IDK, kinda looks like a frog.

Getting back on track, this is where I did my best to express scale.

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A mass of stone.

Standing under the roof of Jones Hall didn't feel right to me, the scale was incredibly hard for my brain to comprehend.

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this is kinda terrifying.



Enterprise Plaza - 10:55 CST

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lurking in the shadows.

The Houston Car Art parade was happening later this day, so some mischief was a muck.

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houston, your trains are just glorified buses



Headed Back - 11:05 CST

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theses two photos are unrelated, but both taken from the same spot

I am always unprepared for a city, my mistake this time was sitting down as soon as I entered the train. At first I was confused as to why I was the only one on my side of the car, the passionate ranting and speech from behind me quickly answered that question.

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Return to the obelisk


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in reply to @wikispittingace's post:

terrific light/dark contrasts and a lot of really pleasing perspectives!

this is one of my favorites:

and this, wow!

i love when orderly patterns start to feel abstract, maybe even untethered to reality. it's easy to imagine you're looking downward on this one.

Thank you so much!!! I'm not that experienced with shooting a large city or committing to b&w, so I really didn't know what to expect. I'm really pleased with how different textures played out, especially between the buildings and the sky.

I had just listened to a podcast about mineshafts, they had a whole discussion about how difficult it is to express the scale of them. That was a bit of inspiration for the shots of Chase Tower, I can totally see the looking downward effect.

I try to avoid people as well, it always feels like I'm intruding on someone's personal space.

Surprisingly, despite Houston being mostly concrete and bad decisions, it's still not the most miserable experience I've had in a downtown area. That award still belongs to Austin.