om the dome

[porktaco]

so, this sunday we had, as we often do in austin, a gathering of the tribe. group yoga and then some chanting inside the capital dome. a veritable smorgasbord of photographic delicacies.

i brought both the m9 and the xe-1, and i ended up using the xe-1 a lot more than i expected to. i'm really, really liking this little camera and the fuji glass. i've gotten a lot better at using autofocus, and now have a lot fewer focus errors with this than with the leica. hm. i also get to shoot my one r-mount lens. nice.

i'm now having second thoughts about not having bought an xpro.

below, 1, 5, 9 and 10 are with the leica. the other stuff is with the xe-1, including a few with the summicron-r 50

 

[Shac]

Great series

 

[Paulbe]

porktaco--great pix!
The lady in the second photo is not only very lovely--she looks positively serene.
What was this event?
Thanks!
Paul

 

[jamesbf]

Thanks for sharing! Interesting stuff!

 

[robert blu]

Leica or Fuji, great photos! I' curious to know, if possible a little bit about this event, thanks.
robert

 

[porktaco]

https://www.facebook.com/events/272763046182982/

thanks guys

the event was called "om the dome", and it seems to happen every, oh, four or five months. yoga for an hour on the lawn, then inside the dome of the capitol building for meditation and then chanting. it's very austin. there is definitely a lot of serenity among the practitioners. yoga's good that way.

the capitol is a beautiful building (memory says it's modeled on the us capitol but is taller than that building), with a fantastic space in the middle (is that a cupola?). the acoustics are amazing, and the light is soft and gorgeous. it holds a couple hundred people rather easily on the ground floor and some number more on the balconies above.

now, i don't know if this event changed the world or anything, but group chanting as a path to (quasi-)ecstatic experience can end up being rather interesting to watch. the crowd was very into it, the participants even more so. it was delightfully un-ironic. at the end, the crowd burst out singing "all we are saying is give peace a chance" over and over for maybe five minutes. very sweet, if somewhat out of my personal historical context. lotta hippie stuff going on in austin. big props to the capitol for allowing the public to have access to a public building despite the disruptive activities (it was sunday, after all).

 

[robklurfield]

great series. the one with the blissed out yogi wearing a paper mache head is an attention-getter.

 

[porktaco]

thanks rob. the monster was my favorite character of the day. she wore that head through the inside-the-dome meditation and chanting.

 

[Tom33]

Looks like lots of fun. The "Keep Austin Weird" thing seems to be working fine - it is an interesting city.

The photos are great! Thanks for sharing them.

Tom

 

[TXForester]

Cool stuff. If you had not mentioned it, I would not guessed only a couple hundred mile from me. I would have guessed somewhere on the West Coast.