Your Bio

My dad was a pretty serious photographer, mostly as an amateur, but he did work in the photography business for a while at some point after WW2 was over. I think that was in Austin, Texas, about 1946 -- where and when I came along. I still remember his wonderful old Canon rangefinder. It was a Leica copy that he brought back from Japan and used for years. I was disappointed when I discovered, years later, that he sold it without letting me know!

As I recall, he gave me my first box Brownie as a birthday gift for my eighth birthday. I remember making a panning shot of a passing ambulance with it. I was amazed when the print came back with a really neat motion-blurred background and the ambulance was semi-sharp.

April 17, 2011: The Simone Lounge in Houston has renamed itself Simone on Sunset. Nice! My photographs in the "Cocktails" gallery, and more, are now on their website: http://www.simoneonsunset.com.

Galleries

Red Velvet Reject : A red velvet easy chair waiting to be carried off to the dump.

Red Velvet Reject

A red velvet easy chair waiting to be carried off to the dump.

Updated: Jun 22, 2012 2:07pm EDT

Pretty ladies : This should be pretty self-explanatory.

Pretty ladies

This should be pretty self-explanatory.

Updated: Jun 20, 2012 9:35am EDT

Goin' through the car wash :

Goin' through the car wash

Updated: Dec 08, 2011 8:08pm EDT

Moon and Palm : Full moon and palm tree, handheld exposure, ISO 1600, approximately 1/5 second. Shot around 10 PM, Sept. 13, 2011 in Palma de Mallorca...not! In my hometown of Houston.

Moon and Palm

Full moon and palm tree, handheld exposure, ISO 1600, approximately 1/ ...

Updated: Sep 14, 2011 5:53pm EDT

Riley Road wildfire : A local newspaper report dated September 6, 2011 described a wildfire that was raging in Montgomery County, Texas (north of Houston). Since my family owns some property out that way, I thought I should go take a look. As I drove north on Sept. 7 along Interstate 45, we saw an enormous plume of white smoke rising in the western sky. There was a light wind out of the north spreading the plume southward. We turned west on FM 1488 and eventually arrived, late in the afternoon, at the spot where I shot these pictures. It was just west of the city of Magnolia. I couldn't go farther because the local authorities had blocked the road. I could not see any flames. I was shooting directly into the late afternoon sun which was just above the plume. There was a lot of activity on the highways around the fire. The roads were blocked to all non-emergency vehicles. Firetrucks, police vehicles, and aircraft were all over the place. I saw a four-engined jet that I could not positively identify, but last night's televised news said it was a DC-10 that had been converted into a fire tanker. The last two photos are from a Chevron station at 18903 FM 1488 as we returned east. The roadblock was just a little bit west of there. More details are found in the Brenham Banner-Press: http://www.brenhambanner.com/articles/2011/09/08/news/news02.txt (and elsewhere, of course). As of September 7, the day these photos were taken, the fire was still some distance away from our property, which is along 1488 on the east side of the fire. We haven't built anything on our two acres there, so we'll just hope for the best.

Riley Road wildfire

A local newspaper report dated September 6, 2011 described a wildfire ...

Updated: Sep 08, 2011 2:19pm EDT

Ad Deum Dance Co. 2011-05-21 : These are photographs of a performance of the Ad Deum Dance Company at Barnevelder Theater, Houston, Texas, on May 21, 2011. There are 1605 photographs. They have been downsized to about 1 megabyte each from the 5 megabytes as they came from the camera. Otherwise, no postprocessing operations -- not even cropping -- have been done yet. Due to several conditions operating that night, a lot of the photos are not of the best imaginable quality. However, I decided to keep almost all of them so that members of the dance company can select the ones they like. The choice of favorites is a very subjective process that also depends on objective factors such as the end use to which a photograph will be put. What conditions? It was a live performance before a paying audience, so I could not just go anywhere and do anything to get the pictures. I had to keep my photography as unobtrusive as possible. Naturally, I could not use flash, which is disruptive to dancers and audience alike. The stage lights were for the most part quite dim, and of course, it was a dance performance, meaning lots of movement in a relatively dark environment. I was unfamiliar with the choreography of most of the pieces, so I had to try to follow the evolution of each dance as a photographic event in real time. I did not have any sort of shooting script to follow. I used my fastest lens, a 45 mm macro f/2.8. My camera's "crop factor" is 2, meaning the focal length is equivalent to a 90 mm telephoto in traditional 35 mm photography terms. I therefore had to crank up the ISO setting to 3200 and use shutter speeds varying from (roughly) 1/5 to 1/50th of a second. This guarantees a large proportion of the shots will be blurry due both to the nonstop motion of the dancers and the noise of the image sensor when it is operated at high ISO settings. (And, to be honest, some are blurred because of my own "photographer's errors.") To improve the odds of success, I used what once was called "motor drive", shooting multiple exposures at the rate of about 3 per second. In this way I play the percentages. In any burst of three to six shots, there is a good chance that some exciting moments will be captured, along with the inevitable awkward and blurry shots. This is what accounts for shooting 1600+ images in two hours! Please review the photos and vote for your favorites. This will help me cull out the real losers and shorten the gallery. Please contact me for consultations on subsequent postprocessing options for specific photographs being considered for publicity purposes: mailto:chethcoat@oplink.net.

Ad Deum Dance Co. 2011-05-21

These are photographs of a performance of the Ad Deum Dance Company at ...

Updated: May 27, 2011 10:23am EDT

Mississippi-2011 : The great flood of 2011. The first five views were taken on State Highway 23 between Woodville, southeast Mississippi, and the river itself. The remaining photos were taken from a park on the bluff at Natchez, Mississippi overlooking the river. All photographs taken on Sunday, May 15, 2011.

Mississippi-2011

The great flood of 2011. The first five views were taken on State Hig ...

Updated: May 15, 2011 6:00pm EDT

Toys for Tots Tango : On April 30, 2011, a Toys for Tots benefit performance was held at St. Mark's Presbyterian Church in West University (Houston) featuring tango music and dancing. There were a couple of world premier tangos on offer, including a clever one featuring toy musical instruments played by children! My tango instructors, Fuad and Ozlem, were the featured dancers. The photos are presented in chronological order. I was using a fixed-focal-length lens of 45 mm (2x crop factor = 90 mm equivalent in 35mm thinking). As a result, some of the close-in shots were unavoidably cropped in the viewfinder.

Toys for Tots Tango

On April 30, 2011, a Toys for Tots benefit performance was held at St. ...

Updated: May 02, 2011 5:48pm EDT

The Ghost Wolves : The Austin group The Ghost Wolves (with guitarist Carley Wolf and drummer Jonathan Konya) performed at Under the Volcano in Houston Wednesday night, April 27, 2011. I offered/asked permission to take pictures during their performance, which was graciously accepted/granted. This is the result. I used about the highest ISO setting I dared to because the lighting was dim, dim, dim, and very yellowish, and flash would have been disruptive in the extreme. The pictures are grainy, which I like for nighttime shots. I used minimal postprocessing, mainly just reducing the yellowness back to a more natural, but still very warm, look. None have been cropped. Because of the slow shutter speed, there is a lot of blur, mainly because of the dynamic motion of the pair (and a few, I admit, due to the dynamic motion of my camera...). I enjoyed their performance very much.

The Ghost Wolves

The Austin group The Ghost Wolves (with guitarist Carley Wolf and drum ...

Updated: May 02, 2011 3:33pm EDT

Illinois in Springtime : Taken at a roadside stop in my trip through Illinois, April 12, 2011. The large, lone tree was taken on the following day.

Illinois in Springtime

Taken at a roadside stop in my trip through Illinois, April 12, 2011. ...

Updated: Apr 20, 2011 5:03pm EDT

Leaves in sunlight : These are fine cases of sunlight illuminating leaves.

Leaves in sunlight

These are fine cases of sunlight illuminating leaves.

Updated: Apr 20, 2011 4:50pm EDT

Cocktails : These are a few examples from a photo shoot I did for a local neighborhood bar, Simone on Sunset: http://simoneonsunset.com/. Quite a few more photographs are shown there.

Cocktails

These are a few examples from a photo shoot I did for a local neighbor ...

Updated: Mar 20, 2011 9:38pm EDT

Small things of no importance : Miscellaneous smallish things combined under the "Still life" category.

Small things of no importance

Miscellaneous smallish things combined under the "Still life" category ...

Updated: Mar 03, 2011 5:25pm EDT

Testing 1-2-3 ... : These are a few photos to try out new equipment, methods, and so on.

Testing 1-2-3 ...

These are a few photos to try out new equipment, methods, and so on.

Updated: Mar 03, 2011 5:13pm EDT

Hermann Park : I was on a photo shoot for a client in Hermann Park in Houston. I took these few extra ones on my own behalf.

Hermann Park

I was on a photo shoot for a client in Hermann Park in Houston. I too ...

Updated: Feb 03, 2011 6:33pm EDT

Buttermilk skies : Houston, Texas, January 7, 2011. Late afternoon, with sunlight filtered through the high clouds. The second photograph looks like a night scene, but it was just underexposed.

Buttermilk skies

Houston, Texas, January 7, 2011. Late afternoon, with sunlight filter ...

Updated: Jan 08, 2011 3:47pm EDT

Bluebonnets : Bluebonnets in Central Texas (near Navasota), April 3, 2010. Aside from the flowers, the spring foliage was almost impossibly green at that time!

Bluebonnets

Bluebonnets in Central Texas (near Navasota), April 3, 2010. Aside fr ...

Updated: Jan 05, 2011 6:28pm EDT

Memorable weather events : Weather cannot fail to interest! The date of each photo set is in the caption of the first image of the day.

Memorable weather events

Weather cannot fail to interest! The date of each photo set is in the ...

Updated: Dec 29, 2010 7:52pm EDT

Vanessa - 2010 : Photos of Vanessa shot in October 2010.

Vanessa - 2010

Photos of Vanessa shot in October 2010.

Updated: Dec 26, 2010 2:36am EDT

My Smug Mug :

My Smug Mug

Updated: Dec 25, 2010 10:21pm EDT

Lake Tahoe USA, August 2009 :

Lake Tahoe USA, August 2009

Updated: Dec 22, 2010 7:48pm EDT

Model of Soviet space shuttle : Just before the Stalinized Soviet system collapsed, they test flew, unmanned and one time only, a Soviet space shuttle vehicle named "Buran." You can read all about it in Wikipedia. In the course of my former career, I happened on this gorgeous stainless steel model.

Model of Soviet space shuttle

Just before the Stalinized Soviet system collapsed, they test flew, un ...

Updated: Dec 05, 2010 10:42am EDT

Concrete, rocks, and wood : I found the indirect sunlight and shadows rather compelling on this little rock garden/cypress fence/parking lot combo. Sept. 25, 2010.

Concrete, rocks, and wood

I found the indirect sunlight and shadows rather compelling on this li ...

Updated: Dec 05, 2010 1:22am EDT

Bernar Vernet sculptures : Photographs of an installation of Bernar Venet sculptures at Hermann Park, Houston, Texas. All were taken on September 19, 2010. I entered three of these in a contest sponsored by the Houston Center for Photography, but I really don't think I put my best foot forward with them. (I didn't win.) Photo number 8 was an overexposure, which I further overexposed in post to create the sort of faux-snow effect.

Bernar Vernet sculptures

Photographs of an installation of Bernar Venet sculptures at Hermann P ...

Updated: Dec 05, 2010 1:14am EDT

Dance : An outdoor dance performance. These pictures were taken from a distance with a mild telephoto lens in available light at a high ISO setting. They were subsequently cropped -- strongly -- and digitally rectified just enough to level the horizon line. I *know* they're grainy! I like the dreamy, otherworldly look. In the first two photos you will notice a single blonde dancer among all the brunettes. She is my Pilates instructor.

Dance

An outdoor dance performance. These pictures were taken from a distan ...

Updated: Dec 04, 2010 11:06am EDT

Nighttime : These were shot at Brenner's on the Bayou, Houston, October 2010

Nighttime

These were shot at Brenner's on the Bayou, Houston, October 2010

Updated: Dec 04, 2010 10:55am EDT