An evening in downtown San Antonio
I spent a couple of days in San Antonio recently, and came back with some photos that I really like!
Two waiters pose for me while photographing this restaurant at El Mercado, the historic Mexican market in downtown San Antonio.
San Antonio is just about an hour and a half south of Austin, but even so, I don't get there that much with my camera. That's a shame really, since I find the city to be rather beautiful, especially downtown along the Riverwalk area. So recently I made the effort to capture some of the vibrancy of its downtown. I had 2 evenings there, which in photographer-speak means 2 sunsets. ;-)
Probably the most popular part of San Antonio is the Riverwalk. It's a series of walkways about one level below the street that follow the path of the San Antonio River. It is filled with hotels, shops, restaurants and bars, and is generally very touristy. But it's also very beautiful, and that's why I went there. I have shot it several times before, but being in possession of this Sony A7II makes me want to re-shoot just about everything! What a camera!
A riverboat passes in front of some restaurants along the San Antonio Riverwalk.
Today's pics are from one evening there, when I wandered around looking for scenes that caught my eye (which were many). I started before sunset over at El Mercado, the historic Mexican market downtown (top photo) and then made my way onto the Riverwalk and shot all through blue hour. It's great fun to capture the vibrancy of an evening there, with all the tourists and locals hanging out and enjoying the scenery. It has some great atmosphere.
I'm a bit of a sucker for any place that offers up lights and water, since I love reflections and the patterns that light often makes in water. The other cool thing is that they have little river boats to take passengers on tours of the area, or just to shuttle them from one end of the Riverwalk to another. As you can see in two of these photos, I did some long exposures that allowed me to capture the light trails of these passing boats as they piloted by me that evening.
It was a very productive photo trip, and I have many more photos to process and share. I also photographed the San Antonio Mission Trail (4 historic Spanish missions scattered south of town), some cool neon signs, quite a bit more here along the Riverwalk and other parts of downtown, and much more. I'll be back with those photos as soon as I can!
Multiple riverboats cruise past during this long exposure HDR.
This beautiful waterfall is behind the Hyatt Regency hotel on the Riverwalk. I find it very beautiful and I pretty much shoot it every time I am there!
