It's week 26 (the official half way mark!) of my personal photography project and this week's theme is "landmarks". I have one picture to share and a story to tell.
I had (what I thought was) the bright idea to photograph one of my dogs at the Mustangs of Las Colinas, a famous statue located in Irving, Texas that commemorates the wild mustangs that were historically important inhabitants of much of Texas. It portrays a group of wild mustangs at 1.5 times life size running through a watercourse, with fountains giving the effect of water splashed by their hooves. The horses are intended to represent the drive, initiative and unfettered lifestyle that were fundamental to the state its pioneer days.
The work was commissioned in 1976 and installed in 1984 and it, along with the plaza that it sits in, won a National Honor Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects; tt truly is a breathtaking installation.
The plaza is huge and I planned to photograph Ginger at 7:30am on Sunday morning when there would be no tourists. We arrived on schedule and the plaza was empty; perfect. It was pretty windy so I brought a C-Stand (you don't really need to know what it is, you just need to know that it's heavy) for my strobe light. I lugged it, a sandbag counterweight, the strobe, a portable battery, cables and soft box across the very large plaza and over the stepping stones for the water feature as I thought the picture would look better taken from the other side.
I then went all the way back to the car to get Ginger and my camera and then retraced my steps across the large plaza to start setting everything up. I was about 5 minutes into that process when a security guard came out of one of the buildings and started yelling to me that dogs were not allowed on the property. I explained what I was doing and just asked for 5 minutes. 5 minutes! That's it! He nodded ok and I continued with my set up, albeit a bit hurriedly now. About 3 minutes after that a second security guard approached, he was the supervisor, and said "Nope, no way. The statue is actually on private property and there are no dogs allowed unless they're a service dog". I thought about that for a hot second, but no. Faking a service dog is not cool.
I was hot and sweaty and annoyed. I had everything ready to go, I just needed 2 minutes to snap a few frames and we'd be on our way. Before I knew it, I, the ultimate rule follower, said "What are you going to do, call the police?" To which the supervisor replied "If we have to".
At this point Ginger said to me "Mom, I don't want to go to jail and have you thought about what you're going to say to Dad when he has to come and bail us out? That's not going to be a good conversation." She had a point, so I muttered under my breath as I trekked all the way across the plaza back to the car with Ginger, popped her into her crate and then returned for all my gear and lugged that back to the car as well.
It's now 8:00am on Sunday morning and I've not completed my mission. So off to my second choice landmark (2nd only because it required a 30 minute drive to downtown Dallas); the cattle drive at Pioneer Plaza.
According to VisitDallas.com, in 1995 the Texas Trees Foundation dedicated Pioneer Plaza to the City of Dallas providing a focal point with historical significance for downtown Dallas. The Plaza commemorates Dallas' beginnings by celebrating the trails that brought settlers to Dallas. The site features native plants and trees and a flowing stream in a natural setting and a re-creation of a cattle drive in bronze with longhorn steers being driven by three cowboys on horses.
The large sculpture commemorates nineteenth century cattle drives that took place along the Shawnee Trail, the earliest and easternmost route by which Texas longhorn cattle were taken to northern railheads. The trail passed through Austin, Waco and Dallas until the Chisolm Trail siphoned off most of the traffic in 1867. The 49 bronze steers and 3 trail riders sculptures were created by artist Robert Summers of Glen Rose. Each steer is larger-than-life at six feet high; all together the sculpture is the largest bronze monument of its kind in the world.
Success!
I captured Ginger on the wall that borders the cattle drive statues along with the Bank of America Plaza (3rd tallest building in Texas, on the left) and Renaissance Tower (5th tallest building in Texas, on the right); BAM! Three Dallas landmarks in one picture!
Moments after taking this picture a security guard walked up and said "Your dog needs to be on a leash", I replied "I'm sorry Ma'am, we were just leaving". I released Ginger from her stay, put on her collar and leash and started the familiar process of trudging everything back to the car yet once more.
