A Night Out on the Town

This post is dedicated to Perry from whom I borrowed the inspiration.


After receiving a kitchen pass last night, I decided to go down town to the Boardwalk in Bossier City and into downtown Shreveport. At our workshop last week Perry was talking about how he wanted to get some nighttime city shots from I-20. I wasn't going to brave the perils of the interstate so I took the safety of the Boardwalk. It's normally a 15-30 min drive to get there but Saturday night traffic was terrible. I guess there were a lot of other kitchen passes as well. Anyway, I was able to get some pretty cool shots from the water's edge (or at least as close as we're allowed to get) and then moved up to the Texas Street Bridge for a birds eye view. Finally I moved over to Shreveport and got some cool "streaming" shots.

I learned several things during my trek. 1) This city (cities) is beautiful at night. 2) I figured out how best to use my settings and especially how to use my manual setting (I have to first go to Aperture priority and set that, then to Shutter and set that. Manual will then use those two settings). 3) Bridges move, A LOT, and getting a "tack sharp" photo on them is not easy. 4)I need to get a remote for my shutter because trying to time traffic 12 seconds out is not fun (10 sec for the timer and 2 for the shot itself). And 5) How to sharpen and contrast cityscapes in Photoshop.

Winter in the City

I got out of work early today (in training the last few) and decided to head down town to see what I could capture. It was my first dedicated endeavor like this and I had everything I needed in my handy little back pack I got from Elizabeth. Long story short (too late) I didn't get "the shot". I wouldn't even say I got anything too interesting. I don't know whether it was lighting, as it was an over cast day, or I'm just not a cityscape guy, but I was mildly disappointed by what I got. I may post some pics here when I clean them a little but don't get your hopes up.
One thing today's walkabout did produce was I got to know this city a little better. I went first to the roof of the Sam's Town parking garage and got some city shots then on to Texas Street for some building shots and stopped by the library for some photos for the Mrs. I then drove east to the Music museum. I was a little confused when getting out of my car I saw engraved in the building "Dedicated to the memory of those who fought in the World War". I couldn't figure out which war that were talking about until I realized at the time the building was built there was only one World War. Cool! There was a quote by Woodrow Wilson! on the side as well. Next I took a walk across the street to the old city grave yard and saw graves of C.S.A. solders and infants. There was one section of graves from East European Jewish immigrants from the 1800s. There were other graves all over of people from Germany, Prussia, France, Switzerland. I never new Shreveport had so much immigration back in the 1850s. It was very cool.

I plan on suggesting to Perry (our workshop instructor) we do a class downtown and maybe I can get some inspiration from my fellow shooters.

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