After leaving Fredericksburg, which was a bit of a disappointment, we made our way back to Austin. The day before we read about the state park, but we put it on the maybe list… Then we saw the sign on the street, and spontaniously decided to visit the park, even if it was just for 30 minutes (it was getting dark fast). It is a pretty rock to hike, but it is at least 1h drive from Fredericksburg, even if the maps make it look less.

We stumbled more or less through a happy accident onto the Benini Sculpture Ranch in/near Johnson City, TX. We were walking though Johnson City on Sunday afternoon, found only one art gallery open, chatted with the owner who strongly suggested that we try to get to the sculpture ranch as long as there is some daylight left. We drove about 6 miles through ranch land including cattle grates, and found the ranch, which was a really nice equivalent to Stormking, a sculpture park 2h north of NYC. It was the end of an “Arts Encounter” and it was really nice to meet a handful of the artists who are exhibiting on the ranch, including the Benini’s themselfs, who were most generous and tremendously nice people. The interesting bit about the Benini Ranch is that it was Lyndon B Johnsons ranch before, where he had 3 trailers to write his memoirs. The trailers got then later replaced with a real house by the next owners, and then Benini bought it in the 70s, and made it a sculpture park with his works, and tons of other great artists. If you are in Austin, try to make the 1h drive to the ranch, it is really worth the time.

Here are the views from the top of the mountain:

Bettye is currently exhibiting a couple of her metal sculptures at the Benini Sculpture Ranch in/near Johnson City, TX, including two of her magnificent Texas Long Horns. One of them you can see right next to the highway, the other one (see below) is in the ranch, some 5 miles off the highway. I personally think that they would make great pieces on a NYC penthouse, or would look great at Stormking.

Johnson City looked like a small Texas town during the day, but transformed itself after sunset into a christmas light spectacular, with everybody competing who has the most lights out, and the obvious winner was of course the local utility company, who decorated a whole grove of trees with lights, Hill County Style…

On our road trip through Texas we landed in Austin and spent one and a half day, barely enough to get a good impression of the city. I had the feeling that we had not enough time and everything felt a bit rushed, but at least I managed to shoot some panoramas.

Of course I had to walk around and find strange abandoned/deserted places that would look interesting in a panorama, like this Kettle Restaurant. Especially the juxtaposition between “Always Open” and the restaurant closed for the afternoon/night was hard to resist:

One of the fascinating aspects of Houston was the clustering of well known staples, like Starbucks, Wafflehouse etc. This panorama is an attempt of a panorama… I wanted to capture the handful of large signs, but I should have probably spent more time to get it right.

It was just a very curious evening, and we decided to simply walk around and see how Baytown looks at night, and see if there is anything interesting to photograph. I have to admit that this might not be the most successful panorama that I have ever taken.

The oil and chemical industry is all over Houston, particularly in the south, and the sites look fabulosly at night, much nicer than the handful of installations in NJ. If you happen to own one of these, or work for one, please contact me, I would love to photograph some more of these for your company.