Floating Dream

When you think of Boston, you probably don't think too hard about what lives under her bridges. The history, the buildings, and the harbor easily pop in your head. But do you wonder what lives in the shadows with the spiders, tarry pilings, and fishing line tangles? I didn't. Yet I made one of my best Boston photos under a bridge. Even better, it was less than a five minute stroll from my hotel.

Discovering this colorful little rowboat marina made me quite happy. Were it not for the modern bridge design, you might not know what century it is under here. Discovering these beautiful wooden boats really made my day.

I made this photo by gorilla-podding my SLR to a railing and making a nice long exposure to dreamify the water and the boats. Finally, I gave it a single-exposure HDR treatment, applied some glow effects, softened the underside of the bridge, dodged and burned, added a film look, and applied a vignette.

What do you think? Do you want to take one of these boats for a tour of Boston as much as I do?

Google+ SXSW Photowalk with Trey Ratcliff

Have you ever been on a photowalk? The walk Trey Ratcliff organizes every year at SXSW is a classic. This year, a mob of at least 300 people met at Austin City Hall, walked up Lavaca, and then down notorious 6th street. During SXSW, Austin really keeps it weird, so the results were a lot of fun:

Werewolves, Darth Vader's second cousin, lost Astronauts, and hundreds of photo junkies. I even ran into Foodie is the New Forty! I'm filing this walk under "success."

Crossing Dark Waters

I flew to San Francisco a few weeks ago to participate in Google's Glass Foundry event. I made this photo next to their San Francisco office. Don't they have a nice view of the bay?

While I was playing with this photo in Perfect Effects 4, I stumbled across a filter combination which dropped almost the entire Bay Bridge except for it's lights. With a lot of Dodge & Burn action, I tried to enhance the effect, hopefully pulling the viewer past the street, and down the bridge.

For some reason, the result reminded me a lot of Scott Sigler's Nocturnal*; its version of San Francisco is full of shadows and hidden passages. If you like twisted stories about secret societies, hideous mutants, and serial killers, you might check it out. Skip it if you're squeamish.

*Moving Average Inc. is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. Buying items through this link is much appreciated!

Views of TEDxAustin

This year's TEDxAustin picked The Circuit of the Americas to host the event. The scale and unique layout of the venue allowed the TEDxAustin team to build an incredible experience. To enter the theater, attendees entered through a labyrinthine "playground" behind the stage, and actually walked over the main stage to take a seat. The theme of "Fearless" really crystalized in my head as I pondered if I was allowed to invite myself on the stage to take this photo.

After the event I was able to capture a few photos of local chefs from Uchi, The Carillon, and Swift's Attic preparing the Speaker's Dinner. Thanks Jennie!

The feast must have been delicious because one of the speakers visited the kitchen to charm the chefs and request seconds of his favorite courses. That must be the kind of fearlessness that gets results, because he ate his seconds.

Scraps

Imagine how you would feel if you got to eat a meal prepared by Tim Dornon of Uchiko, Paul Qui of East Side Kings, and Tatsu Aikawa of Ramen Tatsu-ya. Did you guess that you would feel pretty lucky? That is how I felt when Jennie and I were invited to the Scraps dinner at Ramen Tatsu-ya.

Much of this meal was prepared from what many Americans consider scraps: snapper heads, chicken skins, and so on. Delicious! We dined on a Kushi Yaki of chicken skin and duck tender from Tim Dornon. Paul Qui prepared a course of Jamon Kimchee, Cabbage & Sprouts, and Yukke. The Snapper Ramen was prepared by Tatsu Aikawa. If the ramen looks different from what you normally see at Tatsu-ya, that is because Tatsu adopted a different regional style for this recipe.

Thanks to Ramen Tatsu-ya and all of the chefs involved for hosting us. These folks seem to love collaboration almost as much as delicious food. Our food community thrives because of it.