Its Only 365 Days
155/366: NUDITY BEFORE NINE
3 JUNE 12
My intention this morning was to go out for another personal photowalk. I headed out at 6:30am because it is so hot here, that now I must resort to early morning treks. So I get downtown and I realize, I'm sort of bored of it. My mission three years ago was to photograph one street at a time, and I'm now at the 50% mark, so I didn't even bother to get out. I just turned the car around and began to drive to H park so I could capture good old fashioned nature. Then out of the corner of my eye I see my street art obsession, Daniel "Weah" Anguilu's work. I photographed this building a year ago, but only the one side, but now it is on the roof, on the backs of the building, all the way around. So I hopped out and got all kinds of shots. I was so giddy. This man "owns" Houston! Every corner now I see his work. As soon as I think I've got 'em all, 10 more Spring up.
So I finish with this building and I'm now officially on my way to H park when I pull up to a stoplight and the two guys on either side of me are discussing how the one wants a job with the other. Green light, get to the next light and there sitting in the middle of the street directly across from me is a completely naked man!!! Legs open showing all his glory to the world. I'm pretty sure this guy was probably missing a few screws because the look on his face was completely blank, like cold, dead eyes. In the location I was at, we have metro rails on either side that do not allow for right or left turns on the one way across the rail, so I had to sit there until the light turned green. Awkward!!!
Next it was on in search of a hidden gem called the paper trees. I saw a hint of them at 3am last year coming back from a party, but just never got around to taking the photo. I had to do some crazy driving round and round to get a parking spot to get to this place, but it was totally worth it.
And finally I get to H park and it is the stuff of dreams. The early morning light was hitting everything just right. I got some cool macros and pix of ducks swimming in the sunlight. Then I found a hidden path that led to pure awesomeness. Cue the song "Pure Imagination." Strange birds, rabbits, turtles, beavers, squirrels, a duck that tried to fight me...ugh, I was sooo gone. Me and my camera were totally gone.
After my adventure on the hidden trail, I get back to civilization and what do I hear...this guy yelling and cursing at this woman. She's clearly pissed and so is he. Its barily 8 in the morning...what could they possibly be so angry about. I started walking in their direction because it started to get ugly. He was yelling out not just curse words but he was referencing some pretty lude descriptions of certain body parts. The mother next to me who just rolled up with her daughter and her baby looked at me, and I looked at her, and she started yelling for her older child to stay close. This is the point where the crusader in me kicked in. Two reasons....one, I've told this story several times, but I had an ex-co-worker who as violently assaulted and I watch What would you do and they talked about this issue and people's general inactivity when it comes to seeing women in trouble....so I started walking toward the woman and I was going to ask her, hey do you need help or for me to call 9-1-1, but before I could even do any of that she'd reached this bathroom pavillion and he started to walk fast on her and then I saw her open the door and he literally grabbed her arm and shoved her in and closed the door. At this point I'm about 50 yards away and since the other woman had gone off to play with her kids, I was by myself. I didn't want to go in to the bathroom because there was no one watching me and who knows if this guy was armed. Then there were no witnesses if I did call the police. So I sat down on a nearby stone top and said to myself, I'll wait here so that if she does come out again, I can ask if she needs help or anything...5 minutes, 10, 15, nothing. I hear the door shake even at the distance I was, but I'm like what do I do. Twenty minutes passed and still nothing. I really did try and do the right thing in this situation, but think I failed. After a little while longer, I walked off. In the other situations I've seen and stuff like this has happened, I had witnesses, I was able to call the police, or get a manager to help me, or at least talk to the woman in distress, but not this time, and as I was telling this story later on, my friend was like, why didn't you just call the police...but in domestics, its a catch 22 because they are going to say to me did you see him hit her, and well, I didn't...he can deny shoving her arm and say he just touched her arm, and if she is one of those women who will never admit she's in danger, it may be next to impossible to get her to admit anything happened.
So all of this happened before 9am. Its been a strange and crazy morning...I'm going to do some editing and then put the photos up later.
155/366: NUDITY BEFORE NINE
3 JUNE 12
My intention this morning was to go out for another personal photowalk. I headed out at 6:30am because it is so hot here, that now I must resort to early morning treks. So I get downtown and I realize, I'm sort of bored of it. My mission three years ago was to photograph one street at a time, and I'm now at the 50% mark, so I didn't even bother to get out. I just turned the car around and began to drive to H park so I could capture good old fashioned nature. Then out of the corner of my eye I see my street art obsession, Daniel "Weah" Anguilu's work. I photographed this building a year ago, but only the one side, but now it is on the roof, on the backs of the building, all the way around. So I hopped out and got all kinds of shots. I was so giddy. This man "owns" Houston! Every corner now I see his work. As soon as I think I've got 'em all, 10 more Spring up.
So I finish with this building and I'm now officially on my way to H park when I pull up to a stoplight and the two guys on either side of me are discussing how the one wants a job with the other. Green light, get to the next light and there sitting in the middle of the street directly across from me is a completely naked man!!! Legs open showing all his glory to the world. I'm pretty sure this guy was probably missing a few screws because the look on his face was completely blank, like cold, dead eyes. In the location I was at, we have metro rails on either side that do not allow for right or left turns on the one way across the rail, so I had to sit there until the light turned green. Awkward!!!
Next it was on in search of a hidden gem called the paper trees. I saw a hint of them at 3am last year coming back from a party, but just never got around to taking the photo. I had to do some crazy driving round and round to get a parking spot to get to this place, but it was totally worth it.
And finally I get to H park and it is the stuff of dreams. The early morning light was hitting everything just right. I got some cool macros and pix of ducks swimming in the sunlight. Then I found a hidden path that led to pure awesomeness. Cue the song "Pure Imagination." Strange birds, rabbits, turtles, beavers, squirrels, a duck that tried to fight me...ugh, I was sooo gone. Me and my camera were totally gone.
After my adventure on the hidden trail, I get back to civilization and what do I hear...this guy yelling and cursing at this woman. She's clearly pissed and so is he. Its barily 8 in the morning...what could they possibly be so angry about. I started walking in their direction because it started to get ugly. He was yelling out not just curse words but he was referencing some pretty lude descriptions of certain body parts. The mother next to me who just rolled up with her daughter and her baby looked at me, and I looked at her, and she started yelling for her older child to stay close. This is the point where the crusader in me kicked in. Two reasons....one, I've told this story several times, but I had an ex-co-worker who as violently assaulted and I watch What would you do and they talked about this issue and people's general inactivity when it comes to seeing women in trouble....so I started walking toward the woman and I was going to ask her, hey do you need help or for me to call 9-1-1, but before I could even do any of that she'd reached this bathroom pavillion and he started to walk fast on her and then I saw her open the door and he literally grabbed her arm and shoved her in and closed the door. At this point I'm about 50 yards away and since the other woman had gone off to play with her kids, I was by myself. I didn't want to go in to the bathroom because there was no one watching me and who knows if this guy was armed. Then there were no witnesses if I did call the police. So I sat down on a nearby stone top and said to myself, I'll wait here so that if she does come out again, I can ask if she needs help or anything...5 minutes, 10, 15, nothing. I hear the door shake even at the distance I was, but I'm like what do I do. Twenty minutes passed and still nothing. I really did try and do the right thing in this situation, but think I failed. After a little while longer, I walked off. In the other situations I've seen and stuff like this has happened, I had witnesses, I was able to call the police, or get a manager to help me, or at least talk to the woman in distress, but not this time, and as I was telling this story later on, my friend was like, why didn't you just call the police...but in domestics, its a catch 22 because they are going to say to me did you see him hit her, and well, I didn't...he can deny shoving her arm and say he just touched her arm, and if she is one of those women who will never admit she's in danger, it may be next to impossible to get her to admit anything happened.
So all of this happened before 9am. Its been a strange and crazy morning...I'm going to do some editing and then put the photos up later.