This is the famous Stevie Ray Vaughn statue in Austin. It’s almost as famous as that little statue of mermaid in Copenhagen, Denmark (at least to Texans). It sits on the edge of Lady Bird Lake and I see it almost every day when I go on a run. In fact, I saw it today. We’ve had over a week of 100+ degree days here in Austin, and it’s getting a little old. I’m not the young man I used to be when it comes to this sort of thing.

You can see a few cranes out there over downtown. They are in the middle of building two more high rise condos. I’ve been waiting patiently for them to finish so I can grab a shot of the new Austin skyline of 2010. 2010 – it’s pretty close – can you believe it?

Outside of the famous Broken Spoke in Austin, Texas, sits this old, dilapidated bus. I don’t know how long this thing has been sitting there, but it looks like quite a while. If it wasn’t for the rust, I guess you can assume its age from the phone number only having 7 digits. Remember that? 7-digit phone numbers now seem so quaint, like browsers without tabs.

I wonder if this bus still works. I know we have a lot of smart Texas readers who can probably tell us the answer to that little piece of trivia! Under the photo of the bus, I put up the older picture of the Broken Spoke dance hall that was taken about 20 minutes later as the sun was finishing it’s daily duties.

This classic Texas roadhouse sits about two hours outside of Austin. It’s not even really in a town, but one of those places that is somewhere between. I happened to catch a cowboy just popping in at the last possible second.

Tomorrow night we have a most excellent horse on the ranch picture that I am working on for all you animal lovers… (and ranch lovers!)

Are you ever driving down the road and you see something that looks like it might be an interesting photo? But then, you start thinkin’ about turning around to take a photo, and then you think about it some more, and then by the time you get around to really asking the question in a serious way, you’ve discovered you’ve gone much too far and it would be silly to turn around now? Well that almost happened to me here… but I trained myself a while ago just to immediately turn around and not ask questions. This is a similar phenomenon to the “just 5 more minutes in bed” problem, which is also a slippery slope.

I found this beauty salon one evening when driving between Houston and Austin. It was just sitting there, all neglected…. and I felt like someone needed to pay attention to it, so I did for a short while.

My 3-year-old daughter, Isabella, has been dancing around all night for me, getting ready for her big event tomorrow. It’s her first dance recital.

Her outfit is complete, her spins are looking almost 360, and her beauty sleep is currently in full-force. The epic event is at 4 PM tomorrow. Who has recitals at 4 PM on a weekday? I don’t know. Isabella does. That’s who. I’m not allowed to take photos, so say the ballet-gestapo that run the event. Should I organize an email campaign to make an exception?!!?!? Maybe we can get a 100-200K emails sent over there in protest! hehe…

This first photo below was included in the recent Newsletter, in which I gave an advance link to the new Nikon 70-200 Review. It’s a great lens, and there are a bunch of cool pics from that camera in the review. This piano photo was taken while my 8-year-old was practicing for his recital. He got to play on his first grand piano, and it was cute because he had trouble reaching the pedals because they were so far from the bench.

The second photo below is Isabella is from a few weeks ago when we went to the Greekfest here in Austin… she had her face painted like a unicorn… it was her first face-painting ever, so of course I was there with the camera. That one was taken with the 50mm – I have more info on that one over at the Nikon 50mm Review.

Here is one of those Texas roadside revivals that come straight out of the movies. I happened to get there around sunset, so there was nice dramatic lighting to complement the drama of the environs.

The place was totally empty. I got a little bit creeped out…and I felt like maybe I was being watched. I snapped a few quick shots and then made a hasty egress…

Also, if you are into ENTJ Firebrands, then you might enjoy the First Newsletter that just went out today! You can sign up for free on the Newsletter page… I hope you find some good stuff in there!

Every year we get thousands of bikers that descend on Austin for a few days during the big ROT Biker Rally.

They cruise up and down 6th Street and close fill the streets with incredible bikes and works of art. It’s an amazing place for photography, so I was able to take a break this evening and go down and shoot for a few hours.

I remember when I was growing up that bikers where just about the scariest people on earth. But now, everyone I have met seems to be much nicer and more affable than the average joe. They love having pictures taken of their bikes and generally seem to love life. That’s cool.

See how cool American cars used to be? And then they started getting designed by committees and focus groups and marketing experts… Did anyone see that Simpsons episode with Poochie the dog? I think about that episode a lot whenever I see a boring product flounder its way onto the scene.

Anyway, none of that has anything to do with anything… other than just as a talking point when looking back at old American cars and how much personality they used to have. This was shot at a classic car show here in Austin, which is always a great place to take the tripod for some HDR goodness…

Today Altus, my good friend from Japan, came into Austin with his family. They crashed at my place and it gave us a chance to go out and do some shooting… I feel lucky to be able to go out and shoot with another great HDR photographer! I can add him to the collection! Here are some other greats I have shot with… and I’ll be sure to add Altus to the list soon.

After we went to a secret spot, we ended up at The Oasis on Lake Travis. Here is a shot of Altus leaning over one of the decks to get a shot using his famous fisheye. And here is one of his shots of his hometown of Tokyo.

I don’t think I realized a big difference in clothes and seasons for little girls until I had one of my own. Every single outfit choice is as dramatic as the final night of American Idol. The histrionics that ensue is the selection of shoes could be stage play of epic proportions. But, once the outfit is complete, then it’s time for summer.

Now, some of you may notice (and have noticed) that I am experimenting with new ads on the site. I will leave them up for 24 more hours and see what your feedback is like. If you find them very annoying, I’ll take them down. Feel free to give me frank comments down here below. The site gets between 300K and 350K visitors per month, and the only ad hitherto has been the banner on the right for B&H Photo, who sponsor the site. So, anyway, I value your regular readership, and I have no wish to annoy you! Lemme know… thanks!