Corner Restaurant and Bar – Austin, Texas

Moving on from making snapshots on 6th street, I marched south along Congress Avenue. The Fuji GFX 50R was safely in my bag with the tripod attached. I was working my Fuji X-E3 handheld, looking for moodiness and urban observations.

Monday before Christmas was slow, as expected. After documenting the Driskill Christmas Tree, which was my primary goal, I was free to play around. I became fixated on testing the X-E3 in low-light conditions. I was relying heavily on the optical image stabilization in the 15-45mm Fuji kit lens.

The usually busy Corner Restaurant and Bar, located on the first floor of the JW Marriott, was ripe for photography. There was nobody there, and I could concentrate on the architecture and reflections.

Like I often do, I made several different compositions. With the comparably wide 22.5mm equivalent, I knew the table and ceiling fan will have a distorted perspective, along with leading lines down the covered patio. I post-processed these aggressively to enhance the moodiness of the night.

The building reflected off the back window, which is on the other side of Congress Avenue, adds a layered effect, giving more dimension to a narrow patio.

This is architectural photography, but very different from the formal style used to document buildings for trade publications.

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