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.

Eric Hanson and Greg Downing from xrez.com invited me (and 70 others) to take part in the Yosemite Extreme Panorama Project. The project attempts to make an almost complete virtual panorama of the walls of the valley, in insanely high resolution. Teams went to 24 locations with gigapan bots and Canon G9s and shot each a 3-4 gigapixel panorama of the opposite wall. Sometime later this year they will map those panoramas onto a 3D model of the valley, but you can see the individual results now (Silverlight plugin necessary, use your scroll wheel for zooming in).

Update: the first previews of the 3D renderings are online: HDRlabs blog and Autodesk blog

Of course, I tried to shoot some panoramas, in the beginning with great effort, towards the end of the weekend with a bit less, since I was running out of memory, and nature is great, but not my thing.

Here are the results, and more after the jump:

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Virginia Beach has a lot of beach to offer, so we went down there to see some of the beach, and of course I had to take some panoramas.
Digital, about 110 megapixel

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My friend Jen decided to move away from the big city. Her boyfriend has a great house in the middle of PA, and we spent a great summer weekend with them.
Handheld, digital, about 14500×2000px.

Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in New York anymore.

Right you are. In 2005, Uli and I visited Lassen Volcanic National Park in Northeastern California and actually climbed up to the peak, an elevation of 3150 meters.

Amazing view from up there and to our surprise and delight - tons of butterflies. I have no idea what kind of ecosystem supports them but they were pretty and welcome sight. And the volcano - which devastated nearby areas and showered ash as far away as 200 miles to the east when it erupted on May 22, 1915, was a humbling reminder of the powerful and destructive forces that shape and reshape our planet without a single regard for the puny opinions of its human inhabitants.
Analog, about 13000×3000px.