Dave Wilson Photography » General

ABIA: Austin Java Guitar

Dave Wilson — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:20:35 +0000

Here's another of the shots taken from the scissor lift inside the main terminal at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. This image shows the neon guitar sign above the main coffee shop in the terminal. The nice folks in the cafe turned off the sign's motor so I could get a complete bracket without the guitar rotating between (or during) exposures.

ABIA: Baggage Claim and Guitars

Dave Wilson — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:08:24 +0000

If I'm flying, most of the time it's on American Airlines so Baggage Claim 3 is where I go to collect my suitcase. At ABIA, it's also the home to several wonderful guitar sculptures, each decorated by a local artist to indicate one aspect of Austin life. The guitar theme seems pretty appropriate since, as you get off any plane at ABIA, you are greeted by a sign that welcomes you to the "Live Music Capital of the World".

They take local character very seriously at ABIA. Local musicians play live gigs on an airside stage, all the concession stands are run by local businesses (no McDonalds or Burger King here) and the recorded announcements are all voiced in Texas accents. Come and see what I mean - it's so much less generic than pretty much every other north American airport I've flown through.

Fir, Snow and Moon

Dave Wilson — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:20:15 +0000

This is the last of the Steamboat pictures and another one taken on the perfect, final morning as we prepared to leave. I love the clarity of a blue sky when you're at altitude. Underexpose it a stop or so and you end up with a fabulous background for a pretty minimal shot like this one. In this case, I was lucky that the crescent moon was at an elevation that allowed me to include it in the frame but unlucky that I didn't have the option of a longer lens to make it a bit larger.

Gondolas in the Mist

Dave Wilson — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:42:20 +0000

This was the view on our last full day in Steamboat. We had taken the boys, both new to skiing, to the top of the mountain to ski all the way back on an easy green run when the snow started in earnest. By the time we all got to the base again, we looked like a collection of snowmen and liberal quantities of hot chocolate were required to thaw us out.

The perceptive among you will realise that the "mist" here is actually snow but the title just wouldn't have worked if I had been completely honest :-)

Billy Kidd at Sunset, Steamboat

Dave Wilson — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:05:09 +0000

Billy Kidd, ex-US Olympic skier, is a bit of a legend in Steamboat Springs. He was brought up in Stowe, Vermont but relocated to Steamboat in 1970 and is now their local hero. If you are visiting the town, you can actually meet and ski with him since he leads a group from the top of the gondola each day at 1pm.

Although I didn't get to meet him, I did take a look at this well-known bronze sculpture which is right at the base of the slopes by the main gondola. This shot was taken on our first night in the town when the sunset light on the mountain was absolutely fabulous.

Snow Texture 2, Steamboat

Dave Wilson — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 14:57:41 +0000

Here's an altogether more natural snow texture image. Landscapes covered in new snow are so wonderfully soft - it's like the world has been sent through a rather aggressive low-pass filter, smoothing out all the high frequency jagged edges.

Snow Texture, Steamboat

Dave Wilson — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:19:06 +0000

Here's another minimalist shot from Steamboat. The grooming machines (or "piste-bashers" as we used to call them when I was skiing back in Europe) do a wonderful job of breaking up an icy crust and smoothing out the snow. In doing so, they leave the whole terrain covered in a pattern of thin lines like these.

Seven Eighths, Blue on Blue

Dave Wilson — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:41:39 +0000

Time for another minimalist image, I think. This shows one of the flags near the base of the mountain at Steamboat where the ski school meets. Levels 7 and 8 are the most advanced lessons (I was in a level 6 class) and I guess they don’t get too many people interested in lessons at that level since they only have a single meeting place for both levels.

As far as this image goes, I was drawn to the contrasting blues in the flag and the sky. I underexposed deliberately to enhance the effect.

Looking at this again, I notice some hideous banding in the sky. I guess I overcompressed the image during export so please forgive me. Unfortunately, the photo management software I’m using on this blog doesn’t let me replace an existing image (though I suppose I could delete the post and do the whole thing again, leaving anyone looking at the RSS feed with a 404 error if they try to click through…)

Steamboat Gondola

Dave Wilson — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:46:15 +0000

We just got back from a rather nice 4 day weekend in Steamboat Springs, Colorado where we got to ski a couple of days on what the tourist board refers to as "packed powder" but the rest of us think of as a mix of snow and ice. Regardless of the conditions, it was still great fun and I've added Steamboat to my list of ski destinations definitely worth a return visit.

In a wonderful quirk of weather fate, the skies opened on our second day there and dumped 8 inches of wonderful new snow just in time for us to finish skiing for the year. The morning we left, we woke up to absolutely perfect conditions. Although we weren't skiing that day, our flights were pretty late so I managed to spend some quality time with my Canon G9 wandering the lower slopes and grabbing some images of fresh snow. I had thought about lugging a DSLR with me but decided against it since I wanted to ski and probably wouldn't have had time to use it. Maybe next time, I'll change my mind?

Transamerica Tower and Golden Gate Cables

Dave Wilson — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 12:18:04 +0000

The Transamerica Tower as seen through the cables of the Golden Gate Bridge. This was shot from one of the bridge viewpoints on the Marin Headlands just north of the city on a particularly blustery day.