This weekend, Eileen and I went up to Dallas on Saturday to see a show up there. We went to see a show put on by a couple guys from a cable news outfit. I won't bore you with the details about the show. However, getting TO the show was a scary adventure. It was at the Music Hall at Fair Park. Fair Park is where the Texas State Fair is every year and also home to The Cotton Bowl. It was only about 6 miles from where we stayed. But, we didn't have directions so we asked the person who checked us into our room how to get there. She pulled up some directions off of Google, but those directions didn't take us to Fair Park. The route took us by there, but we ended up off of Dolphin and Spring roads. You talk about a scary neighborhood. Imagine the south side of Chicago or maybe Compton, CA. Those places seemed like Beverly Hills compared to where we ended up. Needless to say we got the f*** out of there in a hurry! We proceeded to stop at a gas station to get directions and the nice gentleman working behind the bullet-proof protected counter told us two ways to get there; either take this one road or take the highway which was backed up due to Big 12 Championship traffic (I think). He recommended the highway because he didn't like the neighborhoods. No sh**! Well, we took the first way anyway because we didn't want to end up in traffic. That was a bad area, but not as bad as where we came from. AND, it didn't take us to Fair Park, it just took us back to the highway. So, we got on the highway, found Fair Park and made it to the Music Hall. When we got to the Hall, we subsequently did a post-mission check of our vehicle for bullet holes, dents, and just general damage. Thankfully, none found. OK, we didn't really do that, but looking back, it seemed like we should've. ;-)

That brings us to the picture. The hotel we stayed at was the Hyatt Summerfield Suites on Harry Hines Blvd. It was a very nice place and if you ever go to Dallas, I would recommend it. Just don't get your directions to anywhere from anyone working there! They have a parking garage there which is about 4 levels high. That's where this shot came from. It's the view of Dallas from there. Just out of the shot to the right is the American Airlines Arena. I would've tried to shoot that, but it was obscured by trees, powerlines, etc.

This isn't the greatest shot I've taken in the world, but I liked the way it turned out for the most part and I thought it might be worth throwing up on the old blog, especially since I haven't gotten anything that new lately. Time get back out there!

Thanks for stopping by!

This shot was processed a little differently... I merged 5 brackets in Photomatix 4 and used the Fusion mode versus the usual tonemapping with details enhancer.  It looked better.  Then I opened it in Photoshop CS4, reduced the noise with Noiseware Pro's Weaker setting and did some tweaking in Nik Color Efex 3.


Other settings include:

Camera: Nikon D300s
Lens: Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II
ISO: 200
Aperture: f4.2
Exposure Bias: 0.00
Shutter:0.8
Focal Length: 34mm
Mode: Aperture Priority
Bracketing: 5 exposures with EVs ranging from -3 to +3 at 1 stop intervals
White Balance: Auto
Tripod: Induro AB0
Nikon MC-30 Remote Release Cord

From the blog at http://egearingphoto.blogspot.com