SXSW Sunset – Austin, Texas

The light and sunset were nice tonight as SXSW (South by Southwest) kicked off today. It’s Austin’s big multimedia, film and music extravaganza. I was downtown with my friend Mark shooting the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II. No playing with high-resolution settings tonight. Just one lens, no tripod and I was in serious street photography mode. And, for a big change, I only used one camera, if you exclude the iPhone.

Cesar Chavez street was decked out with a faux Bates Motel and the new 1000 room JW Marriott was fully operational to greet the onslaught that will overload Austin for the next two weeks. I did a fair amount of shooting tonight and will do more next weekend. I’m going to be busy for the next week but will be back with much more to talk about.

This HDR photo is imperfect but I’m happy with the result. It was hand-held and considering the movement of the camera and the people, the software did a decent job. Sometimes you’ve got to go with what you have. The dynamic range was such that I knew a single exposure won’t do the scene justice.

With SXSW, the Austin Rodeo and new cameras to play with, I’m going to be busy with lots of content. It’s too bad that I keep on falling behind with the other blog topics. I still have more to talk about regarding the Big Bend trip, the recent trip to Japan and the slew of other photos that I shot last year. I’m not optimistic about catching up, anytime soon, but I’ll try to vary the content to keep things interesting.

See you soon.