Landscape-O-Rama: South Lamar Neon

Animated Sign at Gordough's Public House

When I first moved to Austin I was struck by the amount of neon signage everywhere. You even have places like the gallery Roadhouse Relics that specialize in elevating neon to the level of art. I used to live off of South Lamar, so that's a corridor that I've been down many times at night and enjoyed all the static and animated neon signs. I think it's important part of the visual identity of the Austin landscape at night for me. So, on a drizzling evening I finally decided to head out with a camera and tripod to see if I could capture some of the neon in photos. Why go out when it's raining? There's an old film cinematographer trick where you water down the set at night in order to get more interesting reflections. I thought I could let nature do the work with the water and maybe I'd get some unusual reflectivity out of it. It did work in some shots where the glow of the neon spreads to the wet street. I also took some images of signs in puddles where the exposure was acutally easier to capture. One note is that a lot of the older sings were in need of repair. That's one reason I wanted to document some of them in case the business moves or the sign gets busted and never repaired.