Tonight was one of those nights where there wasn't much of anything to do, and my body seemed to be begging to get some movement outside. So I grabbed my camera after dinner, jumped in my car and drove to the nearest location yet unexplored.
The field/park right by the new fire station in Farmers Branch was my first area of interest. I drive by this area almost every day, and just as I was thinking how I've never seen anybody visiting this park, I see an older gentleman casually strolling around the grassy areas with his dog in tow. Look at all those wonderful shadows and patches of light.
I've long pegged this area of rolling hills perfect for something more interesting than a bunch of mowed Bermudagrass and other weeds. The list of weeds tonight included a ton of nut sedge complete with seed heads ready to disperse. People often wonder where the weeds come from, and often it's from "maintained" areas such as this. I very much think we as a society drastically need to change our definition of "maintenance" when it comes to suburban-area landscaping.
Moving on.
I've been shooting with a prime lens lately (23mm f/2, 35mm equivalent). There were a lot of photographs that I could have made with another couple of prime lenses. A zoom seems too easy – I much prefer creative constraints. But running out of light isn't one I wanted to contend with tonight, which happened much too quickly. I then realized I lost my lens cap somewhere along the route and lost interest in making more photos. Because of my relative boredom and need to move my body, I decided to completely retrace my steps to see if I could find the lens cap as a sort of game.
No luck. I lost.
The craziest part of the walk was along Midway. There is a section where a retaining wall and busy road sandwich a sidewalk. So if for some reason you choose to walk on this side of the street, you have the option of walking low on the 4-5ft wide sidewalk along a nine-lane road, or walking 15-20ft up on a 7-8ft wide strip of grass that slopes down a bit from the building to the edge of the wall where a 15-20ft drop takes you down to the aforementioned sidewalk below.
Looks safe to me.
Maybe I'm just a fan of well-designed places and things. But I guess they can't all be winners.
