[VideoPoker]

Welcome to GTAF's Photo Tour topic. Here we'll be posting small ten-image tours of our cities, towns or neighbourhoods. Here are a couple guidelines set by our friendly neighbourhood Mainland Marauder:


• Any resolution should be fine as long as it doesn't stretch the page too much, which is kind of annoying. Try to stay below 1024x (horizontally). This makes it where a good size can be shown but the entire image is still visible all at once, at least on most screens. If you want to link to a larger image, you can do so.

• Constructive criticism OK, non-constructive criticism (e.g. "you suck" or "your town sucks" etc.) is not. Violators will be dealt with appropriately. This probably isn't going to attract much in the way of professional-grade photography, so keep that in mind. Every attempt is a worthy attempt.

• A maximum of 10 photos. IF you only have one or two, that's fine, if you have five, that's fine. But 10 is a firm maximum. You can share more in later postings.

• No back-to-back postings. In fact, if possible, let at least two or three others post before you post more. (We might spell this out a little better once we gauge early interest)

QUOTE (Mainland Marauder)

One more important thing - the whole idea is to show your work. Don't go ripping images off Google or something. I know a lot of people who shoot urban-themed photography on other forums and I know they're not going to be too happy supplying their bandwidth so you can swipe their images. Do not rip images, plain and simple. Post your own. I don't care if all you have is a crappy little cellphone camera. They don't have to be perfectly composed or have impeccable lighting or professional quality of any kind. Just show us what you've got. Who knows, you might develop a new hobby and it might be something you want to get better at. Also, follow any rules for whatever your photo host is. Flickr, for example, requires that you link back to your images on Flickr itself, not just hotlinked. Do this. This is Flickr's rule rather than GTAF's, but let's follow it because Flickr could decide to block all images from GTAF and that would create problems with this and other photo threads here.

That's basically all there is to it. Feel free to comment on other people's pictures and cities even if you don't have any photos yourself, just remember to keep it on-topic. I'm hoping everyone will try their best to add a lot of variety to the thread by posting different cities, neighbourhoods and green spaces.

So let's get this thing started. Happy posting, y'all.

This post has been edited by VideoPoker on Sunday, Jul 4 2010, 01:11

[Mainland Marauder]

Great idea, Viddy. Hopefully this might inspire a little more action here in Visual Arts.

Well, I'll take the lead here. I live in Houston, Texas - the fourth-largest city in the USA. Let's start with 10 shots from downtown Houston; I will probably show other parts of town in subsequent posts after some more people participate.

This is Main Street Square, pretty much in the center of downtown:







Then let's check out Discovery Green, on the east side of downtown, a fairly new park/public space.





The historic district, north/west edge of downtown, built before the more modern office towers.





And then the core business district, around quitting time:





City Hall:



So let's go, show your city or town (or others you've visited and have photographed).

[VideoPoker]

Awesome photos, MM. I love my city to death, but whenever I see pictures of a large urban centre with enormous office towers I start feeling a little inadequate.

Anywho, I live in London, Ontario also known as The Forest City. It's a decent sized city of around 400,000 which is a two hour drive from Toronto for anyone who's interested. This first set of pictures is from Central and Downtown London.

This is Harris Park. The park is right on the edge of downtown and follows the river for about a kilometre.


Some awesome historic buildings along Richmond Street in the centre of downtown.


The back of Labatt Breweries and the Thames River.


A now-defunct Bud Gowan's formal wear, pretty sure he moved out to the suburbs.


One of the enormous mansions on Grand Avenue. Pretty sure it's a swanky hotel now.


A section of pathway that follows the Thames River.


Collection of riverside apartments. (I walked across a giant train bridge to get this one)


My street. I live in the little blue house right above the guy on the bike.


Morning traffic on King Street downtown.


Blackfriars Street Bridge. It's an old steel bowstring bridge from 1875 which is still open to traffic. The road deck is made of wood and only one car at a time is allowed on the bridge.


Hope to see a lot more cities in the future!

[Mainland Marauder]

Looks good, and you're better at this than you probably think you are, Viddy. Great looks at your historic downtown; you've got some urban grit, quiet neighborhoods, good mix there. And it looks much like Ontario somehow (hard to explain) just from what I've seen of pictures of other towns there.

I showed the most "urban" part of Houston. Most of the city is rather suburban in nature compared to the older Northeastern/Midwestern cities (e.g. Boston, NYC, Chicago). There are some rather quaint looking smaller neighborhoods just outside of downtown that I will probably show here in time.

I actually didn't intend to stretch the page as much as I did up there, but it's still within reason since you can still see the whole image lengthwise on a typical computer screen (let me know if otherwise). Anything bigger than 1024px across is probably overdoing it some. We'll just see how it goes. I'd like things to remain laidback in here (except the no-ripping rule is absolute and there will be no exceptions). Constructive commentary is allowed and welcome, even if you don't have any images to post.

[VideoPoker]

I'd say 1024x would be a good maximum as well. That way you can still get a lot of detail, but the page won't be ridiculously stretched.

This is pretty much the first photography I've ever done so it's cool to hear I'm not as bad as I thought I was. I'm using my brother's hand-me-down 3.2 megapixel Canon Powershot so I really didn't know what to expect. The LCD display on the back is broken so for the entire walk I wasn't even sure I was taking pictures.

Yeah, I intentionally picked some of the more gritty urban areas since that's what I find the most interesting. Next time I walk around the core I think I'll try and make it around dusk. However, I think the next set of photos will be from Old North since that neighbourhood is chocked-full of amazing old houses.

[Mainland Marauder]

QUOTE (VideoPoker @ Jun 27 2010, 23:31)

This is pretty much the first photography I've ever done so it's cool to hear I'm not as bad as I thought I was.

Even better. Good show.

You've got a solid piece of equipment to learn with - in fact, it's better than what I'm using (Nikon Coolpix L4, which I bought back in '06). Someday I'll get off my lazy ass and make enough money to upgrade to DSLR. I think I'm ready from a skills standpoint.

The best piece of equipment a photographer can have isn't a camera or a lens, but his/her own eye. You either have it or you don't.

Definitely get out and shoot/post some more. If you could make a trip, say, to Toronto that would be awesome. Go now and you can see a riot

[The Guru]

This is cool. I might give it a go. But I'll most probably just take a tour of the area where I live, mostly streets with houses, cause I haven't got transportation to the urban areas except if I use my money for a bus ride... Which is areally expensive. But I'll try.

[Pico]

I like the topic idea, for sure! I noticed after seeing photos from other members here that I like to see their area... and realized that I rarely shot photos of my area because I think it's boring, however other people may find the things I'm used to much more interesting. So I've take some shots here and there. I know I've got some from the city I just moved away from, and really that's still home to me so I'll post some of those.
As for Phoenix, where I am now, I don't really have much. I'll post some if I find any. Once I get a vehicle I'll definitely be going on photography sessions through out the city.

[Mainland Marauder]

A lot of Phoenix that I've seen has struck me as sort of bland, not even the interesting traditional Spanish/southwestern-style architecture like you might see in cities like Albuquerque. But then again that's based on the few areas I've seen from other people, since I've never actually been to Phoenix. I have seen some cool stuff though from the downtown area of Phoenix.

[VideoPoker]

QUOTE (The Guru @ Jun 28 2010, 09:01)

This is cool. I might give it a go. But I'll most probably just take a tour of the area where I live, mostly streets with houses, cause I haven't got transportation to the urban areas except if I use my money for a bus ride... Which is areally expensive. But I'll try.

You should definitely still try to post a couple pictures of your area since what may seem ordinary to you could be pretty interesting for others. Same goes for you, Pico.

Here's a few other pictures from the same set I posted yesterday:

Looking down York Street towards the core.


Run-down building on Dundas Street East (this area has a lot of old architecture that has been badly neglected).


London Life Insurance building. Built sometime between 1918 and 1939 during the Great Depression.


Richmond Street underpass.


One London Place, London's tallest building.


Looking towards the core from Wortley Village. You can see the steel-arch rooftops of Museum London in the centre of the image.


This post has been edited by VideoPoker on Monday, Jun 28 2010, 23:56

[Metric.]

Nice pictures, VideoPoker! Every time I've visited London (Ontario), I've always found myself liking the architectural design of the buildings, namely the more historic ones. There's a certain charm to them.

I think I'm going to go out in the car tonight and grab some pictures of Downtown Montreal. Seems like a good evening to do it, plus I get to mess with my camera that I haven't used in ages.

[VideoPoker]

Man, I'd love to see some pictures of Montreal, especially downtown and Old Montreal. I almost made it out there for this year's Grand Prix, but unfortunately something came up at the last minute.

Yeah, London has some pretty neat historic buildings, but I doubt they hold a candle to what you guys have up there in Quebec.

[Mainland Marauder]

If someone offered me a ticket and a place to stay for a week in any city in the world, Montreal would definitely make my short list of options. Any Montrealers with pictures are more than welcome to post.

I'll post a few more now. I'll get back to Houston later, but I'll show a bit from my hometown of Texas City, Texas which is about 35 miles outside of Houston. It was the site of an explosion at a BP-owned oil refinery in 2005 that made international news, and has been mentioned some again in light of the spill in the Gulf (which hasn't come this far west....yet.)

It was also the site of the largest industrial disaster in US history, a chain reaction of explosions in the port and nearby industrial complex which killed more than 500 people in 1947.

I haven't gotten around to doing much of a proper shoot there, but I'll share some of what I do have.



Looking southward toward the BP refinery, in the general direction of the 2005 explosion.



At a baseball game at Robinson Stadium during an independent minor league game. It is also home to Texas City High School's baseball team.



I once lived in the neighborhood not far from this ballpark; you can see part of it behind the fence.



Sixth Street, or the historic "main street" which has seen better days for the most part. A lot of historic buildings have been torn down in the last 10-15 years, including the Showboat Theater which this pavilion imitates.











This is the high school football stadium.



I have some actual neighborhood shots somewhere but can't seem to find them. My photo archives have become kind of disorganized.

There's always later.

[VideoPoker]

The first and last pictures are definitely the coolest. The last picture makes the refinery seem especially big, I'd imagine it looks pretty awesome at night.

Sucks to hear that a lot of the older main street buildings have been torn down, but that kind of stuff seems to happen all the time. Less than 10 years ago London's entire Historic Talbot Block was demolished to accommodate our new downtown stadium. The stadium has brought a lot of people back downtown and has been really good for the city, but even today I still miss that amazing block.

[Mainland Marauder]

It is the third-largest oil refinery in the US and was the largest when it was built IIRC. However it's just one of several including BP, Valero and Dow (formerly Union Carbide, of Bhopal infamy).

The whole town sits to the north of this massive industrial complex that probably covers a good 10-12 square miles. And yes, it's all lit up at night. One time when I was still living there, I was driving from the south end of Houston back home and noticed a glow, like something was on fire. I get about halfway and still see it. I start thinking "nah, it couldn't be - how could I see a flare from Texas City all the way in Houston?" Well, I got down there and sure enough, that's what I was seeing.

I made a few attempts at taking a few night shots but they're too sh*tty to post. It's actually one of the first things I want to do when I get some better gear.

[rhyn]

Really cool idea this. I was going to do it this week but I got a call from work and have to work the next 6 days straight instead

Next week for sure though!

[Mainland Marauder]

Next stop: The Heights, Houston. Formerly the separate, independent city called Houston Heights, it was absorbed into Houston in 1918. Located a few miles northwest of downtown.

Much of it feels like its own small town in the middle of a large city.









This was the "downtown" of the old town and is still the retail center of the neighborhood for the most part.







Lots of historical sites around, even though in some cases the actual building is no longer there for one reason or another.







Hoping to see more participation here soon.

[Mainland Marauder]

Apologies for the double post, but this has obviously been moved to General Chat. Read the rules up top as they will be enforced. In certain ways it will be a little more relaxed than some of the other image threads (e.g. on-topic commentary is OK, as opposed to some of the others where we aim to keep chatter to a minimum. As long as it's focused on the sights and places we see here, feel free to weigh in even if you have no images to offer as long as it's within the parameters set at the start of the topic. Keep it clean, keep it fun.

[LanceVanceDance07]

This is an awesome idea, lots of great pictures, I only have a couple of pics, but I'll post one up:

I live in Pickering, Ontario, which is basically a suburb of Toronto, though I travel downtown pretty often, One of the things I do downtown is watch soccer with the mates, so this is a picture of BMO Field at night:



If I have the time, i'll go around downtown, as well as my neighbourhood. I can also get some photos of St. Catharines, which is where I go to university

[*MURDOC*]

Great topic man!

And awesome pics, mine will pale in comparison because my town sucks, thats why I'm usually not here.