Hobos Landing

A while back I attended Mobicamp San Antonio on the campus of Trinity University.  This was a conference of a crowd of the most plugged-in, most active mobile, business, education, social media and connected folks from all around Texas.  And let me tell you, it was great, and of course, I took pictures.  If course I was slow and didn’t get around to doing much processing with them until recently.  Better late than never, I always say, so here’s a few pictures that I played around with.

I always blur the important shots

It’s been a busy day in my little photography world.  I shot a motocross event at White Knuckle Ranch, did some impromptu children’s portraits then went to a meetup/photowalk of FlickrClubSA.   So there’s gonna be a lot of photos coming along in the next few days.  To start with, here is some of the photowalk photos.

Fallen and Alone

Hitchin' Post

Chained and Bound

The Lights On Broadway

Pin points in a row

Shot some photos at Mission Concepción, part of the San Antonio Mission National Historical Park.

Stairway To Heaven

 

The Mission

 

Front of the Mission

 

The Main Entrance In Sepia

 

Cross In The Sky

 

Prayer Garden With Roses

 

Statue

 

The Mission

 

Cross

 

Mission With A Palm Tree

 

Sepia Tower

 

Side of the Mission

 

Tower on Blue

I’ve learned over the years that photo opportunities aren’t always directly in front of you, hence the title of this post.  Here are some more shots from the San Antonio Riverwalk expansion that require that you look up, down or around, to find.

Concrete Ripple

The Great Escape

Money

Gone Fishing

Anchor Point

Stairs In The Sky

Just some shots of flowers and plants from the San Antonio Riverwalk expansion.

His Purple Badness

In Bloom

Floating Zen

Lavendar on Lush

Shamrock Surfing

The River Expansion is a great place to take shots of water.  Water can convey so many things:  movement, stillness, power, serenity.  I tried to capture a little bit of all these, and maybe something more.

Tumbling Falls

Trapped Serenity

Cosmic Ripple

Subtle Power

Falling Pure

Choices

Unwanted Beauty

Precipice

After leaving the VFW, we meandered around to the Jones Street bridge.

The art exhibit here was auditory. There were speakers placed under the bridge and these guys were working on the setup. The guy with white hair in all black is the artist. We actually got to hear it being tested on the walk back. Pretty neat stuff.

After Jones St. Bridge, we headed up the walk toward the San Antonio Museum of Art.

With the Museum of Art on our left, this beautiful water feature was on our right.

We were told that, not only were all the water features we were seeing put there for beauty, the also help put oxygen back in the water to help sustain the wild life.

Just past the water feature was the Gloria Galt River Landing of the San Antonio Museum of Art.

As we moved past the Museum of Art, we passed under Interstate 35, and, of course, another art exhibit. This time it was a school of large panfish suspended over the river.

When the wind blows, the fish will look like they are swimming. Whether John Navarrete here will swim when the wind blows also, has yet to be determined.

We were also told about a colony of bats that lives just past the fish under the bridge. As dusk approaches, they emerge and fly out for food. It is said to be quite the sight.

The final show piece of our tour was the grotto.

Part of the ‘grotto complex’ is this huge, beautiful bench with the sea shell in wall behind.

We wound around and up to the street level and got a pretty good view from above.

And if you were brave enough to enter…

…you could follow the stairs into the grotto. Although it wasn’t turned on while we were there, there is going to be a waterfall that drops from the roof to the pool in the lower part of the picture.

Just a couple more. Here’s a picture of the spire at the top of the grotto,

I have been trying to shoot moving water lately so when we arrived back at the lock station and I saw the spill way was lit, I couldn’t resist giving it a shot.

All in all, I had a complete blast. I think San Antonio is really putting it’s best foot forward with this project. A couple of things to note, there won’t be any restaurants or hotels on this part of the Riverwalk making it a much more peaceful, quiet walk than the main walk. Also, the grand opening of the Expansion Project will be on Saturday morning with dedications, speeches and free barge rides. Should be a great, great experience.

Last night I had the pleasure of getting an early tour of the new Riverwalk expansion project.  As of this morning,  I have only had time to edit a few photos, but there will be even more forthcoming.

We started the tour with out tourguide, Steve Shower at the Brooklyn Ave Bridge.  While we only walked about a mile, the new expansion project covers 1.33 miles and stretches from Lexington Ave to Josephine.

At Brooklyn, is the lock and dam where the barges can change heights. They also had a really cool pavillion. The floor of the pavillion has a great mosaic of a compass which they removed the cardboard from for just a sec. Unfortunately, by the time I got in position and could see through the crowd, they had recovered it. Consequently, since I couldn’t shoot down at the mosiac, I looked up and took this through the roof.

Each underpass on the walk had a different art project. This one has glow in the dark paint in the ceiling, along with mirrors (The mirrors are where the orange is.

I’m not sure the red life saver was part of the exhibit, but it kinda fit in.

Next, we passed the Sam Houston VFW post where we were greeted with bottle clinking by all.

Close to the VFW post, was this neat little pond right in the middle of the Riverwalk.

That’s all I have for now, but I will be editing and posting some more tonight. Stay tuned!