The North Texas Photography Explorers MeetUp Group met up last night in the Trinity River bottoms between Oak Cliff and Downtown.
This used to be a fairly sketchy area, but I felt completely safe, and the only people I saw were in cars, on bicycles, or other MeetUpers, though there is evidence of some late-night shenanigans—graffiti, mostly, and a few drive-through cups—that probably don’t point to much danger. I saw no indication of hard drug use or much in the way of gang-related activity (save one fairly obvious tag indicating territory, and quite distinct from the other, largely benign graffiti). This makes sense, since North Oak Cliff has become quite gentrified of late…
Anyway.
The MeetUp group leader suggested bringing a wide-angle lens, so I brought the Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 DX, and the Nikon 36-72mm f/3.5 E Series.
Needless to say, I swapped out the 10-24 for the 36-72 rather early… Wide-Angle shooting—to my eye—requires some foreground elements, and there is fairly little foreground interest to be had, when one is standing on the downward slope of a levee, overlooking some rather fertile looking land that used to be mighty, raging river sometime long ago. The Welcome to Dallas, Sucker image (number 3, below) is the only shot I included with the 10-24.
Aside from that shot, and the 3 obvious Hipstamatic pics, everything else was made with the 36-72mm, mostly at f/11 or f/8, mostly in APmode at -1EV. Shutter Speeds varied, obviously, and I probably should’ve taken my time, chimped more, and shot in full manual, but I was feeling lazy and moving around some. I still got some shots I was pleased enough with to share, so that’s GoGo, for sure.
All in all, the MeetUp was a good time. I really need to get out to these things more often…
