An Anniversary Dinner and Nostalgia Trip

I attended a dinner to night that celebrated the third anniversary of the Houston Photowalk Meet Up. I made the first meeting back in July 2009. It was a photowalk downtown in conjunction with the Scott Kelby International Photowalks. We met at the pavilion at Discovery Green and were to leave on the walk at 7pm. There was thunder and lightning in a distance as I approached downtown and I think that a couple of times I questioned the sanity of continuing but I needed the opportunity to shoot photographs so I went ahead.

I had not had the D700 very long and this was my first outing with a brand new 17-35mm wide angle zoom. I ran into two people that I knew, Jerry and Susan Pierson. We got signed in and the Piersons and I headed out on schedule. A little more than a block away from the pavilion and the bottom dropped out. Jerry and Susan made a mad dash for their car which was nearby and offered me shelter. I had brought a light weight poncho so I decided to go on. Fortunately Jerry kept my camera dry while I fought for what seemed like ten minutes trying to get the poncho on in the gusts of wind. My DI had a term for the way I must have looked—had to do with monkeys and footballs but I can’t share it here. Jerry and Susan decided to get out of town while the getting was good and I headed for Main Street. I was as wet under the poncho as I was outside of it and I have no idea how my camera equipment survived without any protective gear. I did try to take it out from under the poncho only when I was under some overhead protection but with the wind even that was chancy.

I wandered around downtown for close to an hour. By then the rain had slacked considerably. There were streets where during the hardest part of the rain I waded water up to my knees. It was one tremendously heavy rain. I reasoned that the tall buildings would give me ample protection from lightening and I’m still here to tell about it so I guess it worked. I never saw another photographer until I arrived back at the pavilion at Discovery Green. They were huddled under in the protection of the awning. I did not stay for the show and tell dinner afterwards since I wanted to get home and dry off the D700.

It was an auspicious beginning. I think Joe said there were fifty photographers signed up for that first walk—I think that was one of the Kelby rules to limit the group to fifty. The group stands just short of 1500 members currently. There is a simple reason for the growth—no one and I do mean no one plans, organizes and conducts a photography meetup as well as Joe Lippeatt. Joes says that he is probably a better organizer than he is a photographer—that still gives him plenty of leeway as a photographer because he is one *)@#% of an organizer.

Here are a few of the photographs that I shot that night. The light after the rain was phenomenal. I should have stayed around longer. BTW, neither the D700 or the 17-35mm lens ever skipped a beat as a result of that evening in the rain. No one is more surprised about that than I am.