Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Photo Show

I have been in Houston over forty years and today was the first time I have ever been in the City Hall. It is an interesting Art Deco building which I have photographed many time from the outside but never found a cause to go inside. Well, there was back when Janet and I was doing the art in Houston project. There is a three dimensional piece on the wall of the city council room that I had wanted to photograph but doubted I would get permission. Houston is funny that way. It is probably as uptight a place as I have ever photographed.  Don’t know if it is still there. There are always new things to do. This is also the first time that I have ever had to go through a metal detector to go to a photo show.

Alcy and I met Jerry and Darnell Klumpp at the reflection pond in front of City Hall. Jerry had seen an article in the paper about a photography show in the tunnel between City Hall and the City Hall annex. Houston photographer Terry Swenson gave 48 disposable cameras to clients of Search, an organization that assists the homeless. The clients were told only to photograph what they wished to photograph and to return the camera in five days. Of the 48 handed out 36 were returned. There were thirty to forty of the photographs hung in the exhibit. Going through the hassle of the metal detector called into question whether seeing the exhibit was worth it or not but it really was. It is a shame that it was not hung in a more user-friendly environment so more people would have seen it.

Afterwards we toured a little of the weekly Farmer’s Market that surrounds the reflection pool in front of City Hall and made a brief stop in the Julia Ideson Building which housed the City Library when I first moved to Houston. Neither Alcy or Darnell had ever been inside.

We drove over to Carter and Cooley Company in Height’s Village for lunch and had a long discussion about, what else, photography.

Jerry viewing the photographs


Alcy chatting with ZZ Top--we didn't tell her they were not real!


Houston City Library

No comments:

Post a Comment