Katz’s New York style deli has been a fixture in Austin for over 30 years. For many in Austin Katz’s was the ‘go to’ place after closing down the bars on Austin’s 6th Street or Warehouse district. With it’s parent company recently filing for bankruptcy protection & rumors that they may be looking to move from their iconic 6th street Austin location, I thought I’d better grab a photo of this long time Austin landmark before it disappears like so many others.

Here is yet another view of the Austin Skyline from the Long Center for the Performing Arts. (Can you tell I like this view of Austin?) This photograph was made the same evening the I shot the Austin Skyline Panorama. (You can see that photo here.) When I photograph I virtually always do multiple angles and perspectives of my subject matter. Due to time constraints, I generally only retouch one of the images immediately to post. Later it’s always fun to go back through my files after some time has past to mine another photograph. It’s interesting how an image that did not jump out at me during the first pass will really stand out during a second look. This image was like that. When I was browsing through my photographs for my (sometimes) daily posting I found this shot of the Long Center. It’s hard to say, but I may like it better than the original Panorama.

I know I’ve been doing a lot of Austin Skyline shots lately, but I keep getting request for more images showing the almost “complete” skyline. Of course, it’s never truly complete, but at least most of the cranes are down. Although my exposures were way to long for them to appear in the final photograph, as I was photographing this scene several kayaks silently rowed by. What a wonderful way to spend an evening in Austin Texas!

The new Austin skyline is finally getting to a point where a photograph doesn’t appear to obviously be a “work in progress”. I love this particular view of Austin. The arch at the Long Center for the Performing Arts frames the city perfectly. There is nothing like enjoying a great performance there and then stepping out on the patio during intermission and enjoying the view.
Since panoramas tend to be rather small on my blog I am also including a cropped portion of the photo.

Here is a crop of the image showing the new “Austonian”.

Austin is a great place to live. I live in one of those rare places that where ever you are in the world you can be speaking to a local & when you tell them you live in Austin Texas, the very predictable response is some variation of “I’ve heard that’s a cool place”. It’s true. Great city, great music, even the buildings are pretty cool. Today’s photo is of the interior of the Austin City Hall. Pretty cool space.

This past Saturday I went out to the “Lone Star Rod & Kustom Roundup” here in Austin Texas and took a few photographs. Ok, I actually took a few hundred… So many amazing cars that just screamed for a bit of photo magic! Here is a ’57 Caddy that to my eye looks like it could have walked right out of the animated movie “Cars”. Beautiful!

A few years ago when my son was at A&M he made it his pet project to have his Squadron run the Capital 10k. Twenty or so of his buddys crashed at our house the night before the run. The freshmen slept in tents in the back yard, the upperclassmen slept in sleeping bags inside on couches, chairs and any available floor space. Although my son Matthew is now a Second Lieutenant stationed in Alaska, this year his old squadron (Squadron 20) ran the race again and this year we had 30 Aggies at our house with the same sleeping arrangements. It looks like yet another Aggie tradition may have been born.
As a side note, one amazing thing about ‘kids’ in the Corps of cadets. You can give 30 students a key to your house & when they leave, it will be cleaner than when they arrived. Gig ‘em!

Yesterday evening I had the pleasure of doing some photography for my good friend Sarah Pierce and her band. They opened for Kenny Loggins at the Paramount Theatre in Austin Texas. With such a beautiful venue I had to do a few shots to try & capture this classic old space. I shot this about five minutes before they opened the house. Wow what a view!