SXSW is a big deal down here in Austin! I missed the first few days in Chicago, and when I arrived back I see it was just as crazy as I expected. Our studio is right on 6th street, which has been pretty much a nonstop party for the past week. Of all the various locales where the top bands play, this is one of the better-known ones. It’s called Emo’s, and a closeup of the little sign there (might need to zoom on flickr to original size?) will show a special rule for the elite musician class of Austin who might be surprised to know they get their own sweet set of traffic laws.

I notice that good interior design, once rare, now is pervasive. Something has happened in the last 10 years that has enabled the best interior designers in the world to get their work spread widely. It’s snowballed because now everyone has high expectations everywhere they go.

When I stayed in Houston, I went to The Magnolia hotel, since it was recommended by Tablet Hotels, which is my favorite hotel booking site. I normally don’t like giant hotels that are impersonal and predictable. The hotels in the tablet line seem to put a premium on good design and are more along the “boutique” specialty locations. Often, I find, they are cheaper than the Hiltons and Hyatts of the world too.

The other half of good interior design is that it is traditionally very difficult to capture in a photograph. Have you ever been somewhere really cool, taken a shot, then gotten home and said, “well it was much cooler in person!”. I think the problem lies in the detailed textures and light levels that change on a small scale. The eye can pick it up, but the typical camera method can’t. Of course, this HDR method I use and describe in the tutorial is perfect for picking up the subtleties of the textures and light.

In other news, the nice people at Fotoflot sent me a sample of their work using one of my photos. I put up some photos here that you can check out.

After a few long days with lawyers, I was invited out to go dancing with one of ours. He’s a great guy and, as much as I like to tease lawyers as members of an impenetrable sovereign nation (they have their own superset of rules, their own imports and exports, they live among us, yet exist within a patina of independence), I do like being with them for the intellectual stimulation. From these photos, it’s hard to get any sense of intellectualism, although that’s not really the point. I suppose the counterpoint is the point in this case.

My attorney here is Chanler, the only guy consistently in all the photos! And in the end, I put up a sunset photo of Houston. That’s about the prettiest you’ll ever see Houston.

Daily Photo: Another Sunset in Austin

I think many people in Austin know this place!

There is a cliff wall that can be traversed up the side on an easy trail that overlooks the 360 bridge. It’s always a beautiful place to come see the sunset over the Colorado. I walked up here a few nights ago when I had the feeling that a good sunset was coming (it’s in my bones now). There’s also this oddly-shaped tree up there all by its lonesome, and I felt like it should be included too.

My last downtown photo of Dallas went over pretty well, so here is another from a different perspective.  This is shot from the south side of Dallas, which is rarely seen since most of the commercial development is immediately to the north side of the city.  I see this perspective a lot when driving up from Austin on regular trips up to the city.  On the last trip, we were able to have a bit of extra time to go visit some of the Impressionist works at the museum here in downtown.  It was nice to make it there after dodging all the modern art that just takes up a lot of space.  I’m sure that’s sort of a heretical thing to say, for someone so deep into the digital mediums, but I find most modern art to be inane.  Any piece of modern art that requires a douche in a black turtleneck to describe what I am seeing is something that probably simply represents two minutes of my life I will never get back.  Anyway, I’m sure some people like it… that’s fine… just not for me.

I’ll be sure to add some of my favorite Impressionist paintings in the next iteration of the “Things That Inspire Me” area of the site!

The is the famous Broken Spoke in Austin. It’s hosted some of country music’s best and they are widely seen as the “last of the true Texas dancehalls”. I have a friend here in Austin that recommended I run around and shoot some of these places, and try to grab them with a certain style. So this is really the first in an upcoming series that will probably take me many months to finish.

There is also this ancient looking bus out front that I snapped at dusk… I hope to get that processed in the near future too!

Thanks all of you that were able to come out to my talk last night. I hope it was entertaining for y’all! The good people at CapMac said there was a good crowd there with just over 100 people. There were some very interesting questions, and everyone seemed very nice and affable. We’ll have to do it again next time – thank you all for coming – sorry I could not meet all of you! 🙂

This, below, is the Fig Tree restaurant on the River Walk in San Antonio. If you’ve never been around there for a walk, I highly recommend it. It’s a very touristy thing to do, but, still, it’s cool. And if you like Mexican food (who doesn’t???), there are a million restaurants right there on the river.

It’s all great for people watching. I always like to watch couples walk by and play, secretly, "Do those two look like they belong together?" That probably sounds like a weird game to play, but I can’t help it!

I have this promise here to upload one new unique photo per day.  This has turned out to be a bad promise, because I mess it up about 10 times a year.  Before you get to my daily shot (this one from a little-known flower market from the backside of Dallas), I wanted to do something a little different for those of you that are just getting on Twitter for the first time.

I’ll give you all a list of interesting photographers to follow.  If you guys have more suggestions, send me a message at @treyratcliff. Note this is not my list of top 10 photographers in the world… just cool people that make interesting Twitter updates.  I’ll try to make a new list every month or so…since it’s hard to get to know 50 people at once, I’ll roll them out slowly!

#1 – @stevesimon – This guy cracks me up.  I first heard him on the TWIP (This Week in Photography) Podcast.  He has a wonderful sense of humor, and I generally agree with everything he says.  I’m putting him first on my list because I wish more photographers were like him.

#2 – @thomashawk – Who doesn’t know this guy?  He’s nice as heck, and his Type A personality keeps his overachievement in high-gear.  We’re also in agreement about many of the bad things about Flickr…  it’s so close to being an even better service!

#3 – @kk – Kris Krug is a great photographer.  There is something creative and nice about his work.

#4 – @scottbourne – I like Scott even though he made a snide comment about me on TWIP.  I was mentioned on their site of the week and he’s not much of a fan of Creative Commons, I can tell.  But he’s still a pretty nice guy and he takes great pics of birds.

#5 – @dcjill – The great Jill Greenberg!  She’s protected her updates… but maybe if we all request, she will give in and show us behind the wizard’s curtain.

#6 – @scottkelby – This is another guy everyone probably knows, especially if they watch Photoshop User TV.  I was looking for his sidekicks Matt and Dave on Twitter — anyone know their @’s?

#7 – @chasejarvis – An amazingly cool photographer.  You can tell he is cool just from his portfolio.

#8 – @mostlylisa – She’s a humble photographer that has a really nice net presence.  She also gave me the name of the guy that did her portfolio website, so I owe her one!

#9 – @jessicaclaire – Hey a wedding photographer!  She’s a cool gal with a nice sense of style about her photography.

#10 – @alexlindsay – He is smart as a whip and is very active on Twitter.  He’s one of those cool people to follow because you find out something that’s useful in real time!

Remember, if you have suggestions for next month’s list, be sure to leave them below or send me a twitter message!

Daily Photo: Downtown Dallas from the Flower Market

And finally… here is that photo of Dallas I promised.

The locals from the nearby settlements don’t like to call it a ghost town, but I hardly know what else to called the damned place.

I have a variety of photos from this eerie locale.  It turns out it was a failed development between Houston and Austin that is slowly crumbling into the ground.  There seemed to be a few Madmaxesque squatters in the distance muttering about, but they seemed kinda scary so I kept my distance.  Maybe it all felt a bit extra eerie because of the inclement weather as night fell.  I put on appropriately moody music on my iPod as I drifted around like a ghost to snap some photos.

I also added a new section here called “Things I’ve Found That Inspire Me“.  If you didn’t think I was weird before, you will after you see this page.  Sorry if some things on there are kinda strange… I don’t know how or where I found all these things, but I collect them like a digital antique shop.  It occurred to me on a whim that you guys might enjoy taking a gander at my bizarre menagerie.

Hey everyone knows that models that we see in magazines and the like get a little bit of touch up.  That’s no shocker…

A few days ago I was invited to this exclusive party full of models and photographers.  I was picturing a scene like in that episode of Seinfeld when George Costanza went to that secret party.  Well it was nothing like that.

It started with a little road trip with some photographer friends… and, well… more after the link… but we ended up talking a lot about Portraiture.  I decided to give it a whirl, and so I whipped up a little Portraiture Review for you.  I think it’s great, and I am shocked it took me so long to give it a run.

In the review, you can read more about the process and the software. You can also see the original photo, since people always seem to see the “Before” and “After” of these portrait shots! And, if you like modeling kinda shots, I have them mixed in this set here on Flickr, some of which are the product of my Textures Tutorial.