Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Foggy night

The other day was one of those dreary winter days, and by the time I got off work there was a thick fog that had enveloped the city. I got home from picking up Jonah and pretty much before I could say anything, Caroline asked "do you want to take pictures?" I gleefully said yes like a kid in a candy store and grabbed the camera and headed out into the mist.

Since it was rush hour and it was foggy, traffic was backed up (I think it was a solid line of cars on Central Avenue from University to I-430). Luckily it wasn't that bad if you were heading downtown, and I managed to make it just before it got dark. I stopped first at this view of the old Union Station, taken from a bridge on Cantrell. It was hard to get a good shot from here though because the steady stream of traffic made the bridge bounce.

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I headed over to the station to try to get a few pictures. Union Station was built in 1921, and still serves Amtrak trains. I did a few test shots with the camera to try to figure out a few compositions, and then set up the tripod. But as soon as everything was ready, a big van pulled up right in front of the building and parked (waiting on someone inside the building, I guess). I waited a few minutes for them to leave, but they didn't budge and they were right in the way. So I gave up, but at least the test shot turned out ok.

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From there I headed over to the State Capitol, where a light rain had started to fall through the thick fog (which went right onto the camera lens like it was attracted to it by a magnet).

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I headed across the street to get this view, which is actually the large spotlight that is used to illuminate the capitol dome at night (and not an alien beam coming down to teleport some of our state representatives back to their home planet).

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After that, I headed over to parking deck near the Tower Building that provides a pretty decent view (even though it was still too foggy to see most of the buildings).

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From there I made a quick stop at the Pulaski County Courthouse, which was built in 1889. The newer Stephens Building next to it was more hidden by the fog.

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The camera battery was starting to get low, so I made one last stop for the night at the Junction Bridge. The LED lights on the bridge were shining up into the fog, giving the sky a blue tint.

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At this point I was also getting hungry, since I hadn't had dinner yet. It didn't help that smells from the nearby restaurants in the River Market kept on drifting over in the fog.

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This is the view, looking down from the top of the bridge (taken by the elevator on one of the bridge towers), looking towards the Arkansas River and North Little Rock. There was a bit of fog drifting along the water.

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And one last shot before the camera battery died, looking down the bridge with the fog reflecting back the lights from the bridge.

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