FREDERICKSBURG TEXAS

Early during our month-long stay in Austin, Texas, we made the drive to Fredericksburg, a tourist town with a German flair in the Hill Country 90 miles west of Austin.  Here is a potpourri of the shots that I took during our visit.

Lately, I have been trying to be more selective in my choice of photos to retain.  This occasion was no exception.  These are not great shots--most of them have one flaw or another--but for some reason I have held on to them.

The first is a shot of a stained glass piece hanging in a window of the town's visitor center.

The piece was being nicely lit by sun streaming through the window.  Unfortunately, the window dividers were creating shadows on the figure and his shield.  I did like the powerful lines, though.

Here is a shot of a couple of wrought iron benches.  There was a styrofoam cup sitting on the bench on the right that I was too lazy to remove.  As a result, I had to crop it out, creating a shot that lacked balance.  Even so, I liked the benches and the stone wall behind them.

What I regret here, though, (besides my failure to remove the cup) is that I should have created a larger composition that would have incorporated more of the wall behind, including the window that is only hinted at in this image.

I have to admit that I was a little disappointed in the quality of merchandise in the town's shops, or perhaps we just missed the better ones.  But there was at least one gallery that included some outstanding glass objects.  Here is one of those that worked out fairly well, I thought, as an image.

And then there was the Betty Boop statue that was peeking out of the door of one of the shops.

I could have taken this shot from the front, but I thought this worked better, giving the impression that Betty is actually peering down the street.

The following wrought iron piece is not particularly creative, but I was playing around with depth of field and thought this illustrated that well.

I did like the following shot of a succulent sitting outside one of the shops.  I thought it made a nice abstract, even though it doesn't say anything about Fredericksburg.  For the record, this was shot at f/5.6 with a shutter speed of 1/20 second.   I did like the combination of sharp edges and slight blurring of other portion of the leaves.

There were a number of churches a block or so off the town's main drag.  This first was of a sanctuary that was flanked by blue stained glass windows that created a predominantly blue cast to the building's interior.

I thought the sole parishioner helped the composition a lot.  The plain interior of the above church contrasted with the church next door, denominated St. Mary's Catholic Church, which is typical of more ornate Catholic churches.

I could have used a tripod because of the limited light in the interior.  But lacking one, I ramped up the ISO to keep the shutter speed at a manageable level.  I did like the ceiling architecture.

Finally, there was this building facade that featured an elephant.  Apparently the building is or was a saloon.

I liked this 19th century bas relief in part because of its worn condition, including a broken right front leg.  Too bad about the telephone line running across the upper portion of the image.

There's an enormous amount that I missed in this modest collection of images, but I'm hoping that this eclectic collection will provide some notion of what this charming town has to offer the casual visitor.

John