Tag Archives: #architecture

Arts & Antiques in Galveston

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My friend D called the other day and invited me on a trip up to Galveston for the day. We decided to leave around 1000 so we wouldn’t get there ‘too early’ or stay ‘too late’. Our friend B, the artist, wanted to check out a place she had heard about to show some of her art.

I was all for that. I have been working on some arty stuff myself lately. I found a couple of places to show some of my work a couple of months ago. I was curious to see if there had been any interest (at all) in my work.

It was a beautiful sunny day, not too hot yet when we left. We got stuck in some of the cruise ship traffic on the way in, but found our regular parking place near the Strand (only $10/day). There are a lot of interesting shops in that area of town so we checked out a few.

Lots of really touristy stuff right on the Strand, but wander off it a little and there are more small businesses with local people trying some cool projects. One of those is the place I have some of my paintings and photos- From the Heart Gallery. They show all different kinds of work from at least 20 different artists. They also play good music and have classes for kids. 🙂

While we were there, S told us about a new place -Metamorphosis- just opened across the street. We wandered over to take a look and had a nice conversation with Liz who is really excited about getting her shop up and running. Looks like both B and I will have another place to work with. 🙂

We were getting hungry and since we were right there, we decided to give the Star Drug Store a try. They had a really interesting window display with all the old ads, pills, and elixirs from way back when. It claims to be the oldest drug store in Texas. It feels like an old fashioned soda fountain inside. Looking over their menus, I can see why it’s so popular.

We showed up right at the end of lunch hour, but it was still packed. We sat at the bar since there were no open tables. D had already ordered and B wasn’t hungry. I ordered a cheeseburger (my favorite meal) with a chocolate float. 🙂 The cheeseburger would have been 10 times better if they had grilled the bun. Considering how long it took to get it, I didn’t want to ask them to take it back. I ate most of it anyway. 🙂

Their ice cream sundays, floats and cakes really got my stomach growling, but since I already had a chocolate shake I passed on dessert. Diets suck!

I love this sign!

After fortifying ourselves, we started making our way over to the place B wanted to see, on Broadway and 22nd St. D and me were taking pictures of everything. I especially like all the really cool architecture. Lots of different building styles, from classical to island bungalow.

Along the way, we stopped in to check out a few art and antique shops. Lots of really neat stuff! If I was rich…

But I’m broke. So. I had to adhere to my budget and not buy anything but ice cream. 🙂

B bought a cute little statue of a meerkat. D bought a couple of small mementos in one of the antique shops. My taste is too expensive, I would have bought a beautiful ruby ring (if I had still been working).

I think we were all kind of disappointed in how quiet it was. It just seemed dead. I know a lot of people haven’t returned to Galveston after the devastation of hurricane Ike, but it’s been almost 10 years now. I would’ve thought more people would have shown up by now. For a beautiful summer Sunday afternoon, the whole place seemed deserted.

these plaques all around the Strand refer to the 1900 Great Storm- not Ike

We’re planning to go back up there in a week or so. I need to change out some of my art at the From the Heart Gallery and maybe I’ll be able to put some across the street at Metamorphosis too. B is hoping to get a shot at making a sign for them too. 🙂

I was really hoping to hear some good news, that something of mine had sold. But nothing yet. The area around the Strand is becoming known as an arty kind of place. They have ‘art walks’ every 6 weeks. Those can bring in some crowds. We are going to try to make the next one.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Buildings

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Cee always has some interesting challenges going on. She posts some gorgeous photos and the people who join in put some really good one up there too. Everyone is welcome to join in.

I don’t usually work in B&W, nor do I do much fiddling around with my photos. I may crop them a little, or straighten the horizon, but that’s about it. I can see where it can be a lot of fun playing around with the editing software. Here’s what I came up with…

Galveston has some really cool architecture. I was up there a few weeks ago, trying to schmooze my way into some of the art galleries up there (I actually succeeded and have some of my stuff up at From the Heart Gallery now). 🙂

Color Your World: Burnt Sienna

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Another post for Jennifer’s Color Your World challenge. Maybe I’m blind, but I really don’t see much difference between today’s color (burnt sienna) and yesterday’s (vivid tangerine). I think today’s is a little darker hue, but I can’t be sure that’s it.

Here’s my best guess for today…

More of the interesting architecture from Singapore. They’ve really fixed up a lot of these old ‘shop houses’ around the Chinatown area. I really enjoyed wandering around down there when we were able to get off the ship and spend some time in port.

Goreme Open Air Museum

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I’ve been busy the last couple of days. I’ve been touring around Cappadocia. Late last night, I returned to Istanbul. Today I decided to take a little bit of a break. Tomorrow will start another week of early mornings and long days as I head off into Africa. 🙂

On arrival in Cappadocia, I was loaded into a van with a few other world travelers. One man from Chile, one from Malaysia, one from the Netherlands and a couple of couples from other places in Turkey. We were going on the ‘Red Tour” today.

In addition to the weird and other worldly landscape of the area, the most interesting part (to me) was the Goreme Open Air Museum. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site and definitely worth a visit.

The museum showcases an ancient religious center, full of rock carved dwellings, churches, monasteries, nunneries, etc. Our tour guide Vaysi was very good. He explained everything in English and Turkish (and sometimes Spanish for the Chilean guy). Vaysi also speaks Chinese and Portuguese if you’re interested. 😉

I was impressed with the frescos. Many of the churches had frescos of Jesus Christ, the Saints, and many of the important events from the Bible. Plenty of them are still vibrant after thousands of years. Too bad they don’t allow photography inside most of the caves (they worry about the flash harming the frescos and don’t want to deal with separating out those who don’t have flash on their cameras- people like me). 🙁

It was amazing how the people managed to build all these places so long ago.

The entire area is covered in hundreds of meters of volcanic ash, some of it is ‘tuff’. Tuff is a soft, easily carved stone. The people in this area have been making use of this property for millennia. They’ve carved homes, churches, even entire cities out of the stone. Some people still live in the ‘cave houses’. The hotel I stayed in had rooms carved out of the rock (mine wasn’t one of those).

I wondered how they managed to climb up and down so high every day. How did they get their food and water and everything else they needed all the way up to those caves? Personally I found it exhausting just walking around to the lower ones. We spent a couple of hours exploring the highlights. There was a lot more to see if you wanted to spend all day wandering around.

Photo 101: Architecture

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I thought I’d try to do this Photography 101 project again, since I wasn’t able to spend much time on it last time and missed a few assignments. Here is my post from last time.

I thought I would have more time this go ’round.

It doesn’t look like I will, but while I’m home, I’ll try to participate. Here’s my entry for the ‘architecture’ challenge. I’m trying to find some good ones I can make black and white.

Here are a couple of shots I took a few years ago when I was in Argentina for vacation. I really loved it there. I wish I could have spent months there instead of only couple of weeks. These photos are both from Buenos Aires. The first one is looking down the neat old spiral staircase I found at my first B&B. The bottom one is looking up into the skylight of a market

I think they both show some great ‘bones’. I have some other good photos of architecture from that trip, but most of them look better in color. I don’t usually think in black and white.

Do you think that might help to get better photos?

PS- the ‘featured image’ is also from Buenos Aires. I took it while I was wandering around down near the river one day. I don’t have any idea what the building is.

Photography 101 Challenge: Architecture

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I’m trying to keep up with the tasks for the Photography 101 challenge. I’m pretty busy this week in the Leadership course at MITAGS, but doing what I can here. 😉

This is my choice for the Day 12: Architecture assignment.

Here are a few of my favorite photos I felt would illustrate this theme. I couldn’t make up my mind, so I did a slide show. I do really like to take pictures of interesting architecture, so I have a lot of these pictures. 🙂

The assignment was to think about lines and shapes and to try and go monochromatic, but I just didn’t have the time to mess around with editing tonight and have to get up too early in the morning to think about it. I do think most of these would work nicely in B&W. Maybe if I have time tomorrow I’ll try and see if I can change them. If I can figure it out, I’ll post it. 🙂

School. UGH! It takes too much time! 🙁

If anyone has any comments about any of these photos, I’d like to hear them. Which do you like best (or not like)?  What do you like or dislike about them? Do you think I should have just stuck to one style of building (modern, art deco, temples, etc.)? Or one location (New Orleans, Thailand, Chicago, etc.)? Or do you like the large variety? Do you like the post with the gallery, or do you prefer it when I have all the pictures just all sitting there?

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