One of the things on my Christmas list this year was a 50mm f1.8 lens for my camera.  It’s a fixed lens, meaning you can’t zoom in and out, which is new and different for me, considering the last lens I bought goes from wide angle to extreme zoom in one fell swoop.

I like it.  It’s forcing me to look at things differently.  Since you can’t zoom, if you want a wider angle, you have to walk away from your subject.  If you want to zoom in, you get up closer.

Rather than go into detail, I’ll just show you what I’ve done with it over the past few days.

That effect with the lights is called bokeh, which is currently an “in” effect.  This lens is really good with bokeh, and I’m enjoying playing with it.

We went to The Salt Lick, legendary Texas BBQ, to help celebrate a coworker’s graduation (she finished her M.A. in Linguistics).  At some point, the camera was turned on me.  I was … relaxed, shall we say, from the beer.

I went to shoot the Christmas lights in downtown Round Rock the other night.  This is the water tower that they turn into a big Christmas tree every year.  Like I said, I was having fun with various effects.

My therapist’s office is in South Austin, which is the home of the Keep Austin Weird movement.  One of the landmarks down there is the Broken Spoke, an old-style honkey tonk with live country music and live dancing nightly.  After my appointment the other morning, I stopped off and took photos of the old bus parked next to it.

I am, apparently, the only person in the universe who likes this photo I took of the busted window.  I keep trying to get more traffic to it on Flickr, but I guess it’s more boring than I think it is.

Up the street from The Broken Spoke is Maria’s Taco XPress, which has a rusted out old car in the front yard.  I got some photos of the textures.

Today, I had to go help my parents with the XM radio I bought them for Christmas.  On the way up, I stopped in downtown Georgetown and took some photos of the Williamson County Courthouse in the main square.

Georgetown also has a community theater, which we don’t have in Round Rock, even though we’re three times larger.  Georgetown’s has a nice art deco facade.

And that’s a little glimpse into my week.  How have you been?

Tags: art, Austin, christmas, fun, heat, Home, ice, landmarks, me, men, Music, parents, Photos, press, radio, SHE, texas, traffic, weird, Will, work