Houston Texas

Photography

May 30

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This past weekend we had the chance to visit family in Houston, Texas and get to see some of the sites the city had to offer. While we were there we had the opportunity to walk around downtown Houston and see the buildings, go up to the observation floor of the JP Morgan Chase building, walk along the bayou, attend Memorial Day ceremonies at the Houston Memorial Cemetery, and witness a record setting flood that kept us in Houston for an extra day. All these things made for a very, very exciting trip and to top it off we got to do all of this with family and enjoy Houston with comforts that just can't be found in a hotel. There were many exciting things to photograph in downtown Houston, with many unique buildings built by large oil and gas companies as well cool buildings such as the JP Morgan Chase building that took a floor out of it's building to set aside for visitors to go up and view the city from a very high vantage point. Also we got to walk around the Rice University campus. It was great getting to photograph a campus that wasn't the University of Illinois campus. While we love U of I, and will continue to find new ways to share its beauty with you, it's cool to spice things up a bit and get to take in a new type of architecture and other campus landmarks that we haven't seen before.On top of all of that was the flood. Tuesday morning got off to a fast start as we all scrambled outside to see the interstate behind the parent's apartment had turned into a fast flowing river. We had happened to snap an iPhone pic of the city from the top of the pedestrian bridge behind the apartment the day we got there, and fortunately it was still tall enough (only by a few feet) to stay above the water's crest. A quick trip to the top of it that morning allowed for a great before and after photo that went somewhat viral, being picked up by The Weather Channel, The Huffington Post, and a few local news stations in Houston and Mississippi. It sure led to a lot of Instagram followers (btw if you don't already know, follow @jdmaloneyphotography on Instagram for some behind the scenes and sneak previews of our stuff...we promise it's fun). The whole experience was neat as throughout the day we received emails from photo editors asking for permission to reuse the photo. While it wasn't a profitable photo, it was most definitely our most viewed having been liked thousands of times, and regrammed many times over.In the end we couldn't have asked for a better trip. Despite that one, massive, flood-inducing storm, the rain held at bay and allowed us to get some cool shots that you'll see below. We piled everything into this one post so enjoy a lot of photos, we hope you like them...both here and on Instagram ;-)

The viral photo from the top of the bridge (Above)