Electric Custard

Originally uploaded by whitehotphoenix

Sandy’s burger stand on Barton Springs Blvd. An Austin classic!

New Age Testament

Originally uploaded by whitehotphoenix

Diablo Rojo Tattoo Parlor on Guadlupe. I got some other shots of this building but I think that we are going to go back again to try for some better angles.

Good evening everyone, due to some unforeseen circumstances there won’t be any consistent posts through the rest of July. Sorry for the delay! We should resume our regularly schedule program starting August 1st! For now, check out http://whitehotphoenix.deviantart.com!

This year’s summer has been the mildest in my current memory. It’s been dreamlike and fleeting way too fast. This footage was taken on July 4th, 2009 and it is comprised of over 15,000 still images. We used a Nikon D300 shooting continuously at ISO 3200, f/10, 1/50 shutter speed. The film covers about 7 hours of time. The music is from The Books. It’s called Be Good To Them Always, from the album Lost And Safe. You should totally check out more of their music. It’s mind-blowing.

While traveling to my home, a place I draw great inspiration and comfort from, this is the vista that you see as you near the end of your journey. Always a delightful sight near sunset, the misty hills of West Austin and Bee Caves are still in this photo. This was taken just after a storm system made it’s way across central Texas yesterday and dumped 11 inches of rain.

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We had massive storms in Austin today. It rained all day long and I walked around downtown all day with my socks soaked. Have I ever mentioned how much I love having dry socks? I do. It’s fantastic. Anyway, it rained. Hard. I had to work late too and that’s never fun. I’m glad I did today though because had I rushed home the way I normally do, I would have never gotten the glimpse of a rainbow on my way home as the clouds were breaking. When I first saw it I thought “oh cool, a rainbow.” I wasn’t particularly thrilled about it and wasn’t planning to photograph it. However, I kept watching as I drove further south on Mopac and watched in amazement as the rainbow grew brighter and changed position with my perspective as I traveled. I knew that I couldn’t pass up the shot when I approached an overpass reaching over the highway. I exited and impatiently hurried the unreasonably slow driver in front of me out of my way and made it to a place where I could park my car. Grabbed the camera and tripod and started shooting away at what turned out to be a double rainbow reaching directly into the city. I took a few shots and I guess people saw me on the road below because more and more people started coming up to the overpass to take photos with point and shoots and camera phones. On my way home I stopped and grabbed a few photos out on Southwest Parkway that I plan to publish in the next few days. Hope you like it!

We bought a bunch of sparklers and got a great deal from http://www.halfofffireworks.com in Dripping Springs.

Ugh… I’m not really sure why the video quality sucks so bad. I’m working on getting it in HD.

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I started working on this image about two weeks ago. It was one of the first ones I chose to edit from the Republic Of Texas Motorcycle Rally set. I toyed with it for a while and couldn’t really settle on a style that I liked. When I’m first choosing a shot to morph into a final photographic piece I try several different styles until I find a treatment that really speaks to me. This can be a difficult process and can take anywhere from 15 minutes to several weeks, as is the case with this piece. I finally came back to it this morning and decided to publish it on the blog. I finished the minor editing and loaded into WordPress, but kept struggling with a title for the piece.

As I was writing this blurb I was listening to Audioslave’s self-titled album and then it hit me. I Am The Highway
played and I knew what to name this piece. It was taken on June 11, 2010 on Southwest Parkway in South Austin, Texas.
.

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Hello everyone, Amanda here again! So, Gabe has been talking lately about how it irritates him when people claim to hate HDR because it isn’t ‘pure’ photography or some nonsense. I’ve been thinking about it more and more as he brings it up, and I still can’t understand their viewpoint. These photography ‘purists’ as they are called have quite a negative view towards the post-processing of photographs. There seems to be some sense that a truly great photographer should be able to take pictures that are absolutely amazing straight out of the camera, with no need for post-processing. This is the purist’s opinion. But the problem with having an opinion about an art form (which photography most certainly is), is that no two people will be the same artist or share the same vision of ‘art’. No two photographers will take the same picture, even if it is of the same subject. Because photography is an art form, the question is not how immaculate of a photo you can create with a single click, but rather, what kind of amazing final image can you present to the viewer after extra work in the dark room (or nowadays, the computer)? Without post-processing, HDR images would not even be possible, as they require a program to stitch together multiple different exposures. The sorts of things that an HDR image can capture, that a normal lighting photograph can not, make a huge difference in the overall light quality of the photograph. HDR lighting is more ethereal and glowing. It provides a more magical feeling, giving reality a surreal edge. As a photographer, having this kind of power over light in a given photograph is exhilarating, and really enables the artist to create his own, personal and unique art. Below is the unedited (no post-processing) version of the above photograph. Which one do you like better?

This weekend Gabe and I (yes, this is Amanda speaking for the first time!) went to the Zilker Botanical Gardens in Austin, TX. We got up nice and early and made it there when the morning air was still cool and refreshing. Here are some of the shots we got!

I’m going to start off with my personal favorite of the set of photos we edited. This image is two separate edited images cropped and arranged together in such a way as to highlight the striking similarities between them. The top image features a butterfly dining on a lovely Echinacea, while the bottom image shows a brilliantly blue dragonfly resting on a water lily. If you know the exact species of any of these insects or plants, please let us know in the comments!

This next picture was something we captured as we first entered the garden. This Kapok tree was situated in the parking lot just outside of the entrance, and its spiky bark caught my eye. The colors are slightly enhanced, but the bark was truly a greenish-blue color. Really wicked looking.

This next one just takes my breath away. The lotus is such an amazing flower! That seed pod in the middle is like something out of a fairy tale, and you can just barely see a little bee hiding in the back. This beautiful flower was part of the prehistoric garden, definitely one of my faves.

These little guys were also in the prehistoric garden, right next to the huge waterfall. I really loved the brightness of the pollen in these flowers. I could imagine what an easy target that would make for a bee on the lookout.

Several of these beautiful Easter lilies lined the pathway into the prehistoric garden. I love the flecks of yellow pollen on the white petals. And check out the awesome spider web in the upper right corner! That’s some cool shit!

Last but certainly not least, this pseudo (one image) HDR of the pond in the zen garden is tough competition for my favorite photo of this set. I only wish more of the water lilies had been in bloom.

We also took several time-lapse videos of the gardens, for your viewing pleasure. We hope you enjoyed joining us on our visit to the Zilker Botanical Gardens!

Zilker Zen Garden from White Hot Phoenix on Vimeo.