Architecture – Page 2 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Brennan’s Houston

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I shot this on request for my friend at Studio RED Architects who were strongly involved in the rebuilding of Brennan’s here in Houston. You might recall that Brennan’s burned down during Hurricane Ike.

Shot from across the street using the A850 and the Zeiss 24-70mm.

21 second exposure at f/13.

The neon sign wasn’t finished before the grand opening and if you look closely, the gas lanterns are also not complete.

Brennan's

Copenhagen – Last Full Day

The last day in Copenhagen. New Years Eve. We’d wanted to go to the Nationalmuseet (National Museum) after running out of time the previous day (read: we couldn’t find it). Alas, it was closed due to the holiday

We figured not much would be open and decided just to walk around for awhile which lead us to the Børsen (Stock Exchange) building which features a tower formed by the tails of four dragons twined together

From there we spied the telltale tower of Vor Frelser Kirke. If you look closely you’ll see there’s a spiral staircase that goes around the outside of the tower.

It’s open to the public, but not at this time of year….

Even more unfortunate, the church was closed for the day but we did spend some time outside shooting pics.

From there we walked leisurely back to the hotel and upon arriving asked the hotel concierge for a recommendation on a place to get a traditional Danish meal and we were directed to Cafe Nytorv just off the Strøget. It was a charming place and the food was delicious. We ordered Carlsberg beers and snaps as our beverages. Cynthia is not a beer drinker. She hates it in fact. But she decided to be adventurous and ordered one and when she took the first sip she found that she actually liked it.

She did not, however, like the snaps. I had to drink hers as well as mine. Drat the luck! 🙂

After lunch we walked a bit more but then headed back to the hotel to pack and get ready for the fireworks.

Copenhagen Day 5 – The Rundetårn

We headed off this morning to climb The Rundetårn (The Round Tower) which is not too far from the hotel. Cynthia really likes to climb things when we travel. Fortunately, the tower had a mildly sloping ramp that winds up most of the 130 feet to the top. There is a set of small stairs at the very top which are tight and difficult to manage when there’s too much two way traffic.

The fish-eye lens made for some really good photos inside the tower.

About halfway up we found this little alcove. The sign says Kissing Corner in Danish and there’s a piece of missletoe hanging from the ceiling.

Once to the top there’s a pretty spectacular view of the city

Another successful adventure!

Copenhagen Day 4 Part 2

As I noted in my previous post, I had not met with success in my efforts to capture the Copenhagen Opera House at night. When we had gone out to the waterfront it was a Sunday night and the building was dark. Checking on line I saw that there were performances all this week so on Tuesday night I loaded up the camera bag and the tripod and headed out to try again.

This time I got what I came for.

Copenhagen Day 4 Part 1

Today dawned bright and sunny. Still cold, but blue skies and sunshine. We had wanted to take the train over the Öresund Bridge to Malmö Sweden and this seemed to be the day to do it. Trains leave every 20 minutes or so and it takes about 30 minutes to get there.

We have no Swedish Kronier and we don’t have a map and we don’t really know what we want to do when we get there. My primary interest was crossing the bridge, which is half tunnel and is an architectural marvel. Plus I like the idea of making this a two country trip.

On the way over to the train station I grab a shot of an art installation on loan from Poland called the Tree Hugger Project.

We get to the train station and pretty quickly sort out getting out tickets and finding the platform to catch our train. There’s some confusion as there’s a train at the platform already, even though our train is not due for 15-20 minutes. We finally see a sign that says in three languages “Do Not Board This Train”.

The ride to Malmö is kinda of fun and exciting for me. For Cynthia, it is rather terrifying. She really hates being underground. And the recent London/Paris Chunnel passenger stranding which was all over the news didn’t help.

Malmö is quite charming. We set off toward the city center and explore our surroundings.

After walking for awhile I mention to Cynthia that I’d really like to see the Turning Torso which is an example of Deconstructivism architecture.

We could see if from the train coming in and I had a rough idea which direction it was, but as I mentioned before we don’t have a map and no Sedish Kroner to pay for a bus or a cab so we just walk. After a short time we spotted it in the distance.

We had hoped to walk a short distance and get a clear view of the building for a good photo, but it seemed no matter how far we walked, there was always some buliding or another in the way.

We kept walking and did eventually walk right up to the Turning Torso after traversing (on foot mind you) the industrial district of Malmö Sweden.

I will tell you this, it was worth the walk. I got some great photos!

Memorial Hermann Hospital

Looks like the new Memorial Hermann building I wrote about previously is nearing completion. I can only speculate as to why there are beams of light shooting skyward. Perhaps these are transporters that deliver the souls of those who don’t make it to their great reward. I was unable to verify if there were equivalent beams of light headed in the other direction emanating from the ground floor or basement.

Memorial Herman

The Glass Tower @ 1400 Smith St

Took advantage of a street closure to setup a tripod and take these shots with my recently acquired Sigma 10mm f/2.8 fisheye. Click either image to see larger size.

It will always be the Enron building to me.

La Ciudad de las Artes y de las Ciencias de Valencia

It was worth packing a tripod just to get these extended exposure shots of The City Of Arts And Sciences in Valencia, Spain.

City Of Arts And Sciences