Poor Impulse Control
Cynthia e-mailed me this morning saying:
OK- I’ve suddenly been bitten by the travel bug. I can be talked out of it though. Go ahead and tell me why it wouldn’t be a great idea to fly to Brussels for Christmas!!!!!!
I couldn’t think of a single reason…
3 hours later we have our flight and hotel booked.
Looks like we’ll be hitting up the Plaisirs d’Hiver/Winter Pret (“Pleasures of Winter”) festival to celebrate the holidays and ring in the new year!
w00t!
On A Pedestal
Cynthia demonstrates why she is the brains of this outfit. Predicting the challenge of shooting art at your feet, she packed a lightweight stool to take with us to Via Colori so she could more easily photograph the art.
She further demonstrated her smarts by suggesting I not try to balance myself on same said stool.
Thanks to my wide angle lenses, I was not hindered by such good judgement.
Taking It To The Streets
Via Colori 2008
To be honest, I was only peripherally aware of the Via Colori festival prior to being contacted by Greg about The Flying Fish Sailors performing at the event.
Via Colori is a licensable special event that any given charity can “lease” for the purpose of raising funds for their organization. Here in Houston the annual event is held in support of the Center For Hearing and Speech.
Basically you (or your company) can purchase a square to be painted with chalk. Donations for the square range from $500 – $1,500, depending on size. You (or your company) get a placard next to the square with your name on it indicating your patronage and an artist of your or the festival’s choosing then paints the square over the course of the two day event.
All in all, not a bad deal. There were some 175 companies/organizations/individuals represented by artists who spent the weekend on their hands and knees transforming a small patches of asphalt into works of art that ranged from benign to magnificent.
If you do the math, that’s a sizable # of donations for the well deserving Center For Hearing and Speech.
As a whole, the event was very interesting and the weather could not have been more cooperative in terms of temperature and, more importantly, lack of precipitation.
Before and after my band’s performance, Cynthia and explored the festival and shot pictures. Watching some of these artists working in chalk, knowing their creations would be washed away by Sunday night was, well…compelling.
Additional photos of mine can be found here
Bird Angles
Ripple Effect
Shot with the Tamron 70-200mm
Seattle
Both of these best viewed large. Click image to see large version.