SchneeWorld : weblog

What Happened To Rock and Roll?

Every year for the past six years, Austin has hosted the "Austin City Limits Music Festival", or "ACLFest". This year, Kathleen got me a three-day pass to attend for my birthday. I'm not a big fan of live music - I like studio recordings better. Still, I was excited to go and since it was in our backyard, it was easy to get to. With the three-day pass, I had in-and-out access, and kids could attend for free.

On the Sunday, Kathleen scored a one-day pass and we took the whole family down.

They had an "Austin Kiddie Limits" section - a small stage playing kid-friendly music (Ziggy Marley was there for a bit), the Austin School of Rock Petting Zoo (real electric guitars, bass guitars, keyboards, drum sets), and other interactive displays. Jack had a good time with that, but Ben was a little stand-offish (uncharacteristically). Anna was just happy to figure out how to drink from the Camelback bite-valve.

It was eventually time for the kids to go and I was designated Sherpa. With Anna on my back, I loaded Ben and Jack into the stroller and trekked the 2 miles back to our house.

On the way there, the music faded out and Ben asked "What happened to Rock and Roll?" My answer:

"Well Ben, one likes to believe
In the freedom of music
But glittering prizes
And endless compromises
Shatter the illusion
Of integrity"

Jack and Ben enjoy music. One of their favorite activities is to head into the computer room and have me crank up (LOUD) David Essex's Rock On. Ben will sing "Blue Jean, Baby queen, prettiest girl I ever seen" as he goes to sleep. If they aren't listening to Rock On, they like to hear the Cars soundtrack, which I find exposes them to a nice variety of music.

And that's good.

October 02, 2007 by Brent Schneeman

Posted in General | 0 Comments »

Tags: kids austin music

Banana Jump

This was just one of those "WTF" moments. Only in Austin? Jeez, I hope so. Stopped at a red light, on a bridge, over Barton Creek, on Barton Springs road, I looked around. I had a beautiful view downstream to the hike-and-bike trail's footbridge over the creek. The clear water floated several canoes and kayaks and lots of joggers crossed the bridge.

Except one guy in a yellow shirt. He sat on the railing, legs dangling over. He looked one way, and then the next. Soon, he scootched over a couple of feet and then stood. He let his shirt unfurl and it dangled down to his ankles. A man, standing on a railing, suspended 20 feet over a creek, wearing a body length yellow shirt. And then, he reached behind his head and pulled on the hood. The pointed hood, with a black top. A man, standing on a railing, suspended 20 feet over a creek, wearing a body-length banana costume. No sooner than I thought "what the...?", the man jumped.

Then, the light turned green and I drove away.

May 16, 2007 by Brent Schneeman

Posted in Life | 0 Comments »

Tags: wtf austin

Ice Storm 07 - The Artsy Photos

(each image is clickable and will take you to a special place where you can see bigger versions)

The photographs presented here were intended to be made the day before they actually were. Ice Storm 07 hit Austin on a Tuesday, but other things were going on that day which were more photographically interesting. So these were made on Wednesday when my office was shut down for the day. Why are there two of every photograph? There are not. Each image was taken from its own negative, the difference between the "dupes" is that in the one on the left, no flash was used and on the right, I let the flash fire. Naturally, the camera was mounted to a sturdy tripod and the flash was mounted to the camera (some day I'm going to get an off-camera flash cable).

In PhotoShop, I post-processed each image pair exactly the same - I added the same slight S-curve layer and then sharpened only the edges to the same amount. I found that ice tends to oversharpen quite easily so I tried to be very gentle. All images were made on Kodak Portra 400VC film (I got some for free) and were shot with the magic lens (a Canon 70-200 mm f4 L). Macro shots had a Nikon 5T Closeup Lens mounted to the front of the magic lens.

This yucca accumulated a nice dusting of snow, some icicles formed and the leaves were completely iced over. I noodled around the plant trying to find an interesting angle.

No pair for this image. I noticed the repeating pattern and tried to capture it. I think I probably overexposed the ice a bit - the flash threw in too much light.

Edge detail on a yucca. I like the non-flash (left) version best. More underleaf detail and the ice really caught and refracted/reflected the flash in the right-image. Both images have merit, and I like the composition.

Some poor frozen flower. Oh that black spot in the middle were either not there or a a bug. I like the non-flash version - the specular highlights to the right of the flower are more pronounced, and the flower is now washed out by the flashed ice.

Again, the flash overwhelmed the detail in the ice, making the flash version less defined. A good lesson here.

Here, the flash added to the clolors, really making the greens and yellows pop out agains the reds. Nice to know that the flash was worth the purchase.

This was awesome. The flashed version is much better - the frozen nuts (heh) caught and reflected the flash, which surpressed the background colors significantly. Upshot - the subject stands starkly against the darkened background. Yea! I composed this image with writing of some sort to the right of the subject - sort of like a greeting card or something.

Some detail on a nandina plant. I really don't have too much to say about it.

Some nandina berries. Everytime Austin ices over, this photograph is possible and probable. Still, many examples I've seen (and taken) have the berries against an uninteresting background. Red and green are Christmas colors for a reason.

The flash threw enough light to the background leaves to bring them into the photo.

January 19, 2007 by Brent Schneeman

Posted in Photography | 0 Comments »

Tags: photography austin

Ice Storm 07

(As always, all the images are clickable and go to bigger images which in turn probably go to even bigger images)

It was coming. You could see it. You could feel it. You could taste it. A low pressure system stalled west of Arizona, sucking the Jet Stream down south. This created a vacuum of sorts that pulled Northern Artic air down to Austin and simultaneously picked up moisture from the Pacific. The two systems collided over Central Texas and formed....da da dum....Ice Storm 07.

Saturday, we got a taste in the form of rain and colder temperatures, but it wasn't until Tuesday that we really knew what we were in for. On Monday, temperatures continued to drop and more rains came. Tuesday morning, I took a look outside and saw it...ice. I immediately thought of my camera. I loaded my kit, put on the magic lens (which, as it fortunately turned out, is a moderate telephoto) and said goodbye to the wife and kids. As I walked outside, I dimly registered a rushing water sound and thought that the gully was full, but didn't think much more of it (that's foreshadowing...pay attention). I snapped a couple of pictures, but just did not find anything of interest around the house. I decided to head on down to the Barton Creek greenbelt, by way of the gully.

Barton Hills Drive crosses over the gully near my house and there is a rather nice waterfall right off the bridge. As I got closer, the sound of rushing water got louder. Much louder. I gingerly negotiated my way to the bridge, experienced a brief manifestation of my superpower (I almost never fall down), and took a look. Our gentle little wet-weather waterfall had transformed into a raging torrent of angry water. I did not know what the cause was, but I was intrigued (that's more foreshadowing). I figured that I'd check out the other end of the gully when I got back from the greenbelt. I made a couple of photographs and headed up toward the trailhead.

I worked my way around a bend in Barton Hills Drive and noticed three things: a police car parked askew in the road, a man standing in his front lawn in sandals with a broom, and a lot of water flowing down the road and through the man's and neighbor's yards. I knew from where the angry waters were coming, and I knew that this was going to be bad. I asked the man (I found out later that his name is "Rex") if I could do anything. He just mimed "pray". I could not think of anything else to do, so I that's what I did.

I walked up to the source of the water - a gaping hole in the road had formed at the intersection of Barton Hills Drive and Wilke and water was flowing up through it. The water forked, with about 1/2 going down Barton Hills Drive (and through Rex's and neighbor's yards) and about 1/2 flowing down Wilke (and through yards and houses along the way).

At first, the water was relatively placid, content to flow up with occasional spurts. But then, it turned into a geyser, bursting forth and shooting six, eight, ten feet at times into the air.

I switched to my wide angle lens and attempted to get a few images of the area. I walked down Wilke to where the water was flowing into (and over) a street drain. Later, I was pretty surprised to see how bad the water tore up the pavement on Wilke. I expect the city to have to repave almost the entire stretch.

I worked my way back up Wilke, looking for photographic opportunities. As I was noodling about, some folks asked me if I was "press". I'm not, but I guess since they had seen me carrying around a tripod and switching lenses they figured that I was. I found out that they had called in the break at 8am that morning. It took a while for the water to be turned off - I'd be very interested to find out how many gallons this break "cost". Not from an "assign blame" point-of-view, I'm just curious. I was very happy to see the patrol cars blocking traffic for the entire time I was in the area.

Eventually, my guilty conscious started to hurt. I walked over to Rex's, put down my camera and picked up a broom. My neighbors where already there ('Hi Roy', 'Hi Cheryl') along with other helpful people ('Hi Lucy', 'Hi Michelle', 'Hi ... other helpful people'). We spent a couple of hours trying to clean out Rex's place. His wood floors were shot - the water came in the front door and out the back, soaking 80% (or more) of his floors. We tried to salvage the area rugs, the furniture and various nicknacks on the floor (e.g.shoes, boxes, sundries) but I'm not sure that we were all that successful. I hope that from an insurance perspective, a flood isn't a flood isn't a flood and that his homeowner's policy will cover something like this, but I don't know.

Eventually, while I was at Rex's, the water stopped. The City of Austin crew had managed to staunch the flow. Later, I saw the pipe that had burst. 16 inches in diameter, this iron pipe had a two foot hole blown out of it forming a half-pipe section. The hole in the street was pretty massive. Waterservice is turned off to some of the people in the 'Hood (but not to us). The road is closed and I'm not sure when it will be open.

(watch this space for the artistic photos that came from Ice Storm 07. The water main break was photojournalistically interesting, but not very artistic)