#836. Small Burton Home

Taken in Burton, Texas two weekends ago. I love to make up my own stories about these old houses when I find them. I think this one was built for a young nephew who needed a place to live when his immediate family out grew their own home. People used to do for each other. Some stil do I suppose.

I found this poem in the cloud after Googling "Small Houses" (no author noted):

Dear House,
You are really very small,
just enough for love,
that's all!

Title: "Small Burton Home" Cmaera / Lens: Canon 5D Mark II / Canon 24-105mm L zoom
Post-processing: Photomatix Pro > Photoshop CS4 > Nik Color Efex Pro 2

#779. Old Homestead

Taken this weekend near La Grange, Texas. This is not MY old homestead...but is someones. Whenever I see an old abandoned home like this it makes me wonder what event led to the abandonment. I know it wasn't abandoned fifty years ago so that I would have something interesting to photograph today! So what was it? Someone's health problems, some past economic hard times, legal woes? You can't tell from looking at the remains of the building but it does make you wonder...doesn't it?

Title: "Old Homestead"

Camera / Lens: Canon 5D Mark II / Canon 24-105mm L zoom
Post-processing: Photomatix Pro > Photoshop CS4 > Nik Silver Efex Pro 2

#676. Foggy Farmhouse

Another shot from my foggy weekend in Galveston this past weekend.

Title: "Foggy Farmhouse"


Shot data: 1/400s f/8.0 at 120.0mm iso125
Camera / Lens: Canon 5D Mark II / Canon 100-400mm L zoom
Post-processing: Adobe Camera Raw > Photoshop CS4 > Topaz Adjust plugin > texture from flypapertextures.blogspot.com

Spooky Old Hospital

Taken Saturday in Baytown, Texas. This is the old San Jacinto Hospital building. It has all the usual outward signs of abandonment including broken windows, boarded up windows, graffiti and an intimidating perimeter fence. The building is really quite spooky looking but it's hard to convey "spooky" in a photo taken on a beautiful day with blue sky and fluffy white clouds. Compositionally I tried to make the shot spooky by including the fencing in the foreground and by taking the shot at an unusual angle. I think the lens distortion resulting from using the wide angle end of my zoom adds to the effect. Post-processing included playing with some of the Photoshop blending modes (color dodge, color burn, multiply, overlay) till I got to a place I thought looked spooky (or at least eerie). I'm sure this place looked a lot less spooky 5 decades ago when I was born here! :-)

Title: "Spooky Old Hospital"


Camera / Lens: Canon 5D Mark II / Canon 24-105mm L zoom
Post-processing: Photomatix Pro to convert three exposure bracketed (-2, 0, +2) hand held images into one HDR (High Dynamic Range) image > Photoshop CS4 > Topaz Adjust plugin