10 Years Of Christmas Card Photos

2006, the first one. Might as well start with The Alamo, our most famous landmark. Luckily the tree had white lights so it's brightness in relation to the Alamo is as good as it can get. This year's Spurs-themed tree is very dark.

2007, Tower Of The Americas, San Antonio's other iconic landmark. We made a point to come downtown closer to sunset, for more color in the sky.

 2008 San Fernando Cathedral.
This was the only year this photo was possible because sick trees that would have been in the way were removed and not yet replaced. The fountains had just been installed, too.
Probably the best remembered picture, but it set the bar impossibly high. Sold and gifted a lot of 8x10" prints of this.

2009 The Riverwalk.
Right in the heart of downtown. To get our card photo we go all over town looking at decorations in the weeks after Thanksgiving, then return to the best spots at the optimum time to refine the composition and exposure. I put a lot of work into this project, so it's gratifying to hear that most people save the prints every year and look forward to the next one.

2010 Sneaky Santa.
One of our favorite ornaments, posed on the little silver tree in our front window.
I was looking for a change from "downtown SA at night" and having to drag a heavy camera and tripod all over the place. Super easy, and fun.

 2011 The Riverwalk again.
This was the first year the city used LED lights, to mixed reception. Under the impression that they could leave them up all year, the crews went all-out wrapping the trees almost completely. Unfortunately, the color of these first-generation bulbs leaned pretty far to the blue end of the spectrum. Then squirrels ate the wires when the weather warmed up, destroying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of lights.

2012 St. Vincent De Paul Catholic Church.
Taken a couple of years earlier after Christmas Eve Mass.
I was working 60 hours a week that year, and didn't have time to search out something. Also wanted to go in a religious direction. I also took one where the tree is out of focus but Jesus is sharp, then let Sylvia choose.

2013 Little Church At La Villita.
This pic was maybe 5 years old, and is the only daytime shot.
We weren't finding anything else, then quickly ran out of time.
While printing them, the machine got stuck and wouldn't stop. By the time staff got it shut down there were over 100 extra prints that I still have. This was the year my brother Ken died right before Christmas, and I drew some comfort from this picture.

2014 Blanco County Courthouse, Johnson City Texas.
I had been wanting a shot like this for years, to get a small-town view.
Sylvia left work early so we could make the hour+ drive north in time to catch sunset.


2015....to be continued

"First" Rides

This Polaroid is a rare shot of my first car, a 1977 Chevy Monte Carlo my  mom bought for me at the end of my senior year 1980 for $3750.

My brother took WAY too long choosing his first car a few years earlier, and mom got fed up. He ended up getting stuck with a Dodge Dart that wasn't bad but also wasn't cool. 

Ever the clever boy, I made up my mind to be quick.
We found the Monte at the 2nd lot on the first day, and I wanted it badly.
It was about $1000 over budget but the prospect of being done car shopping in the first hour instead of the first month was worth the price so I got the car and brownie points, too.

Yes, spoked rims and yellow pinstripes, we thought it was kinda pimp.
Turns out moreso than we thought.
The first time I drove it in downtown Albany NY was interesting. People would see the car, walk closer to the curb and wave. Until they got a look at me.
The body language was easy to read:
"What's that white boy doing drivin' Leroy's car? Sheeit!"

I turned the tires around so it had raised white letters instead of stripes--Goodyear Eagle 70-series by the way. Put it a good stereo. Flipped over the air cleaner lid so it could suck wind from all sides. This car could light up the tires at will, and had a ton of room inside for guitars and amps, friends, roadtrips, and drive-in movie fun. Very reliable, too.

 

This is right after I moved to Texas--still had the parking sticker from the State University Of New York/ Albany. 

And because this was the early '80s when we all drove around while drinking beer--legally, until you got wasted--I put the bumper sticker on it to seem like a more upstanding citizen. 

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I took this picture of Ken in 1987.
Had just taken him to the Harley dealer to pick up his brand new Sportster.
He'd hit too many snags in the restoration of his 1972 Triumph Bonneville and I had suggested just getting the HD so he could ride again and worry about the Triumph later.
He never did finish it.
And the Sportster was never as clean as it is in this photo again.

Just found this pic while going through Ken's mountain of stuff.
It's a bittersweet memory for me because he was riding this bike that I talked him into buying when he died, but he also got over 25 years of pleasure from it and sure does look happy.

Been Busy

End of February was hectic, getting ready for my late brother Ken's service and 4 cousins coming to SA. It was bizarre seeing family members at a Televators show.

Went hiking with Barbara and found an antler for the first time:

She's a silversmith and made this rocket for me. It opens up to hold a few ashes and has Ken's birthstone--supercool!

I took them (in varying #s) to the Alamo, El Mercado, La Villita, La Cantera, Jacala's, and Mama Margie's.
All big hits.
Cousin Bruce brought us beer: Ghost River for me, which is a local Memphis brew, and Yuengling for Sylvia. She used to bring it home from business trips east of the Mississippi, so it was great having a case delivered.


We were having troubles with Sylvia's Honda Civic, and dropped a lot of $$$ on it's 2nd transmission rebuild only to find that it was overheating randomly. After 5 tows and another pile of $$$ we were told that it needed a new engine.
She cried a little, manned-up quickly, and decided she was done with it.
We were lucky to meet Byron and Patrick at Gunn Honda, a couple of cool dudes that we could relate to. Byron went to see Phish in Austin one time, and woke up in Kansas. He's seen them 97 times total after that auspicious start. Patrick is Canadian, which is cool in my book. They were THE BEST car salesman/finance pair I've ever dealt with, and in a few hours Sylvia had her very first brand new car, a 2014 Honda CR-V:

We both love it beyond all expectations.

During our car troubles we rented a KIA Soul for a week and enjoyed it, then our friend Holly loaned us her spare Ford F150 pickup, which lost it's alternator in a Wendy's drive-thru with 2 of my cousins along for the drama. Man, the electrics on that truck freaked the hell out, while I was in all the other customer's way. Couldn't get it into neutral for awhile, the alarm was threatening me, lights were coming on all over the dash, the radio kept trying to eject invisible CDs. Luckily we were in walking distance of the cousin's hotel, and she had a rental car. Yet another tow job involved.

Best part of all the car hassles was that when push came to shove, "Old Blue" (my UT orange '98 Dodge Dakota pickup) was suddenly Mr. Dependable in getting Syl to work and back, and in fact hasn't given me more than a few very minor glitches since last October. Nothing like it used to be, dying in the middle of Loop 410 rush hour.
Which is funny because Old Blue went through a period where it only got freaky when Syl was riding with me on weekends, then acted normal the rest of the time. Convincing her to drive it alone didn't even involve threats or bribes, because she had manned-up already. Super Proud.


If you've been following along, you know that my laptop died during our first night in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. This was back in January. I spent a lot of time working on it there and here and at times it seemed like it could be saved but at a certain point it got packed up and written off. About two.5 weeks ago I pulled it back out just for a lark, and long story short I've been buying $2-5 DVDs again and spending what used to be "BloggerTime" at the kitchen counter watching movies and listening to my bass playing over some Sony studio headphones. Thanks to my tech, Buz, for added help in getting it back among the living.
Don't think I mentioned here that we also had to buy a "new" PC tower right after getting back from the island, since all my others had died in depeche mode right before we left (Translation=Fast Fashion). The laptop was all I had, and when IT failed....there was a break in wanting to blog or even be civil to people online.

The "new" PC is Dual-Core and double my old RAM running Win7, and I love it so far.

Keeping On...

A few days before the rug got pulled, I was prepping our patio for the annual Christmas party. That meant cashing-in 8 bags of crushed aluminum cans. Probably 10% sodas, 90% beer, 67% of which was Miller High Life.
Learned just how bad cheap bags can be. Go Hefty.

Filled the bed of my truck, which is a Dodge Dakota that is much bigger than a Ford Ranger or Chevy S10 or Colorado, but skinnier than the F150/RAM/Silverado class of trucks.

When I got to Northwest Recycling on Grissom Road, there was a mom in an SUV that had the whole rear of her vehicle filled to the roof with cans.
Sadly, they were packed 10-12 uncrushed in little grocery store plastic bags.
The recycling can man had given her a 55 gal. drum, and she was un-knotting the bags and dumping cans at a snail's pace.

I pulled up and was out of there in 7.45 minutes with my cash.
2+ years of bevvies.
113 pounds of aluminum cans @ $0.45 per pound.
A $50 bill plus change.
Had the cans been gold at that day's spot price, $2.15 million.
A nice bit of cash but for the amount of time involved rinsing, crushing, and moving it's no way to make a living.



On that other subject, I took this photo within a minute of Ken's passing.

Was waiting for the word after pulling the plug, and like our mother and grandmother before him, I knew.


I finally found the backup disc with original files of this shoot, so I made a quick wallpaper to keep on a screen during our party:

My late brother, the mad scientist.

I had already taken a similar photo of myself and then Sylvia, followed by Holly's Kat, and getting him to cooperate was easy because he knew it would make a perfect header for Ken's blog.
Nobody else got smoke machine action, which was routed through his shop-vac's hose held between his knees.

Didn't take enough pictures of him, but he LOVED these so I don't feel guilty.

Kenneth Donald

I keep asking myself if this shitty nightmare is real.
My brother just died.
My heart is broken.
I'm the only surviving member of our immediate family.

Sylvia and her mom + sister were the kind of solid and experienced support you'll wish you had in a situation like this.
I Love all of you SO much.

The McNay Art Museum

My brother wanted to see the Edward Gorey exhibit at The McNay, but we made him wait until the last day.
Anything I might say about how much we enjoyed it is wasted breath, because it's over and you missed it.
Remember the animated credits on PBS's Mystery series?
Gorey.
My own description after seeing the travelling show at The McNay was "Whimsically Macabre".

There was lots of other great art, and an impressive collection of work by the famous impressionists like Picasso and Van Gogh and Cezanne, Matisse, Renoir, etc.
Strangely, even though I'm a photographer my preferences lean towards sculpture.


The map we were given had red areas where photography was not allowed.
Basic rule was if the McNay owns it, you can shoot it.
Still too complicated, so unlike our visits to SAMA I kept both cameras in my bags until we were booted out the door at 5 seconds past closing time.

I also took pictures in the courtyard, and from it's balconies.
LOVE the building.

Many local photographers pay a fee to use the grounds for bridal, quinceanera and graduation portraits. Others try to skip the fee by going ninja--I can always spot them at meetings by their crutches.

The previous post's turtles were in this pond.

The new wing has been open for quite a while and we always meant to check it out.
These little junipers are part of it's landscaping.

I'm glad we went, even though getting home turned the day sour.
Riding to our mechanic's shop in the cab of an old tow truck had enough moments of terror that it would make a good theme park ride.
The guy on SW Military who started asking me a lot of BS questions at knifepoint seemed about as dangerous as a drunk lemur after that, although he's lucky it didn't end up deep in his ass just on principle.

Views Of Texas #601: Tom & Kenny

Had I known what I was doing back in November 2004 this moment might have been captured better, but I still LOVE this picture of my brother inside the Jefferson Memorial, Washington DC.

Got my first digital camera (Sony F717!) two weeks later because I suddenly got physically ill for the whole time at the thought of having a borrowed camera taken away for good.
Lost 5 pounds and discovered that NO photography wasn't an option.

Kind of like how I feel about not being able to shoot in infrared.