Downtown noir

Photo_doug goes all noir on downtown Houston, making it seem like the set of a 1940's gumshoe mystery.



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My name is Smith

Photo_doug added this great picture of 1400 Smith Street looming over the Smith Street pedestrian ring.


You can add your photos to the HAIF Flickr pool, too. All are welcome!

Downtown at Night

Telwink brings us this unusual view of Houston. It's downtown.. at night.. from what appears to be either the old Sheriff's building, or maybe one of the new lofts north of the bayou. Either way, it's a great clear shot.

Swooosh!

Swooosh!, originally uploaded by bill barfield.

The clouds rush by above while the traffic rushes by below. This great shot of the Southwest Freeway trench is brought to us by HAIF pool member bill barfield.

You can add your photos to the HAIF Flickr pool, too. All are welcome!

sonic cell phone

sonic drive-up, originally uploaded by S. J. Alexander.

Again, a cell phone camera does a great job of catching the riot of colors at this Sonic drive-through. The noise in the photo just adds to the grittiness of the scene.

You can add your photos to the HAIF Flickr pool, too. All are welcome.

Green Chevron

chevron, originally uploaded by S. J. Alexander.

Your eyes can't see it, but your mind knows it's there -- the sickly green glow from beneath the canopy at the gas station.

A photography professor would reject this picture because the white balance is off. But without the greening of the scene, it simply wouldn't work. It conveys that 2am feeling in your stomach when you're hungry, salty, and just need enough gas to get home.

You can add your photos to the HAIF Flickr pool, too. All are welcome.

texas children's hospital

texas children's hospital, originally uploaded by S. J. Alexander.

We've seen a lot of good cell phone photographs lately, and this is certainly one of them.

Just because you don't have a professional camera doesn't mean you shouldn't be out there shooting and capturing the world around you, like S.J. Alexander did. This picture of the Texas Medical Center was captured on his cell phone.

You can add your photos to the HAIF Flickr pool, too. All are welcome.

round

round, originally uploaded by S. J. Alexander.

Objects that are the opposite of round for a round object in this photo from S.J. Alexander.

Looming Luminosity

img250, originally uploaded by S. J. Alexander.

The mall looks almost menacing in this shot by S.J. Alexander.

You can add your photos to the HAIF Flickr pool, too. All are welcome.

Sunset- Houston

Sunset- Houston, originally uploaded by I-SEEN-IT.

A bulging water tower stands silently as the sun slips below the horizon in I-SEEN-IT's shot from the University of Houston-Downtown.

You can add your photos to the HAIF Flickr pool, too. All are welcome.

The curve of Buffalo Bayou is captured in this image from telwink.  The vertical elements of both the stairwell and the downtown skyline enhance the sinuousness of the water's flow.

You can add your photos to the HAIF Flickr pool, too. All are welcome.

Telwink brings us this unusual view of downtown Houston from across the bayou.  It's not a view you see very often, but one that I'd like to see more of.

You can add your photos to the HAIF Flickr pool, too. All are welcome.

Hermann Planet

Hermann Planet, originally uploaded by I-SEEN-IT.

I-SEEN-IT sees things differently than the rest of us in Hermann Park. A great shot shows that there's still lots of creativity left in modern photography.

You can add your photos to the HAIF Flickr pool, too. All are welcome.

Getting out of town

More Phun With PhotoShop, originally uploaded by bilbao58.

I-45 north of downtown never looked so good as in this shot from Bilbao58. The problem is the cars are going the wrong way. With a skyline as good looking as that one, they should be headed into town.

You can add your photos to the HAIF Flickr pool, too. All are welcome.

Sky

Sky, originally uploaded by bilbao58.

Another great mixture of glass and sky. Not one to let a few clouds get in the way, bilbao58 shows us how to make lemonade out of lemons.

You can add your photos to the HAIF Flickr pool, too. All are welcome.

Early Evening Light

Early Evening Light, originally uploaded by bilbao58.

Bilbao58 captures the length of the downtown skyline, but frames it so that it's easy to imagine that Houston's skyscrapers go on and on.

You can add your photos to the HAIF Flickr pool, too. All are welcome.

"No, I think it's this way..."

"No, I think it's this way...", originally uploaded by bilbao58.

Timing is everything, and leave it to bilbao58 to capture the moment when the tourists are pointing one way and Sam is pointing another. Great job!

You can add your photos to the HAIF Flickr pool, too. All are welcome.

City Flag

City Flag, originally uploaded by I-SEEN-IT.

Proper use of white space (or in this case "blue space") can completely transform a photograph. Cropping is sometimes as much an art as shooting the picture in the first place. I-SEEN-IT demonstrates this well in this photo from the HAIF Flickr pool.

You can add your photos to the HAIF Flickr pool, too. All are welcome.

Modern hitching post

This building is next door to yesterday's HAIF Photo of the Day selection, and again it's one that I had daydreams about when I lived nearby.

I don't know its history, but I always imagined it was some kind of a saloon or feed store in days gone by and that junker repair shop in the back was a blacksmith's shop back when people in Texas still got around on horses.  It didn't take much for my Yankee imagination to imagine all kinds of Lone Star lore that could have come from what is now a run-down check cashing place.

Thanks again to telwink for capturing another one of the places in Houston I never realized had such an impact on me.

The demise of deco

This was one of the buildings that fascinated me most when I moved to Houston.  I lived around the corner and would drive past it several times a day.  Across the street was a run down dive bar, and there was always a roach coach next door.  

I always imagined that some day it could be HAIF world headquarters are something equally stupid.  But nothing became of my plans, or anyone else's apparently.

After a couple of years of lingering interest, one day the windows were boarded up, and a fence sprung up around the property.  My hopes were raised that maybe something would finally happen here.

That was six years ago.  And from this great picture telwink captured, it appears nothing has happened since.  Fortunately, we'll always have this picture to remember it by even if it gets torn down.  Telwink managed to capture it in a photo even better than my memory and imagination did.

You can add your photos to the HAIF Flickr pool, too. All are welcome.