Street Photography in Houston

Main Street is the spine of downtown, and the METRORail Red Line runs straight down it. Joe Lippeatt of HoustonPhotowalks has led a Downtown at Night walk here almost every year since the first one. His route follows Main Street and photographs the trains and the people out on a Saturday evening. Main Street Square is the stretch around the rail stop, with towers on both sides. I'd come in the last hour of daylight, when glass buildings throw reflected light onto the street from odd angles. Stand near a platform with focus preset on the train doors. Wait for one rider to step into a patch of light. Trains share the street with you, so keep one eye on the track.

Market Square Park sits in the oldest part of downtown, surrounded by lower, older buildings than the glass towers a few blocks south. At lunch, office workers eat on the lawn and dog owners use the park. After work, the bars on the surrounding blocks fill up. That gives you two different shoots in one small square. In the day, look for a single figure crossing the lawn with a tower rising behind. At night, stand on a corner and frame people through lit bar windows. The square is small, so you will be noticed. Work slowly and make eye contact rather than hiding the camera.

Under downtown, about 20 feet below the street, runs more than six miles of tunnel linking 95 city blocks. It started in the 1930s as a passage between two movie theaters. Today it is lined with food courts and shops for office workers, and the downtown district says it runs on workday hours, so go on a weekday around noon. The light is flat and artificial, which suits repetition: long corridors and queues at lunch counters. Only Wells Fargo Plaza and the McKinney Garage on Main have direct street access. Everything else is entered through private office buildings, so security can ask you to stop. If they do, put the camera away politely.

Discovery Green is the big park on the east side of downtown, next to the convention center. It has open lawns and a busy calendar of free events, from concerts to markets. That makes it the easiest place downtown to find crowds on a weekend. Late afternoon is best: the towers to the west throw long shadows across the grass and people come out once the heat drops. Shoot toward the sun for silhouettes against the skyline, or find a raised edge and look down on the crowd for patterns. Families with children use the park, so be considerate and don't single out kids.

Graffiti Park, on Saint Emanuel Street in East Downtown, is a block of walls covered in murals, including the well known "Sky's the Limit" piece. Most visitors come to pose. That is your subject. Turn the camera on the people taking photos: a friend crouched with a phone, a couple checking the screen, a stranger walking through someone else's picture. Afternoon sun lights the walls evenly, and a 35mm lets you include both the mural and the person in front of it. A lot of the area is parking and warehouse space, so watch for cars reversing while you are looking through the viewfinder.

The East End is Houston's oldest neighborhood and has one of the largest collections of outdoor murals in the city, much of it rooted in Hispanic culture. The Navigation Esplanade is its public space, with weekly markets and festivals, and a cluster of murals called Calle de Colores runs along Navigation Boulevard. The biggest day is East End Street Fest on Cinco de Mayo weekend, with art vendors and two music stages. On a normal afternoon, I'd walk Navigation and wait for passersby to echo the painted figures. This is a lived-in neighborhood, not a backdrop, so ask before close portraits.

Buffalo Bayou Park follows the bayou west of downtown, with trails and wide views of the skyline. Runners and dog walkers use it from early morning. The Rosemont Pedestrian Bridge and the bridge over Allen Parkway both look straight back at downtown, which makes them good places for sunset silhouettes: wait for a runner to cross the bridge and shoot them small against the towers. A short telephoto compresses the skyline behind a single figure. The park floods after heavy storms, so check conditions after rain and stay off trails near the water when they are closed.