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I’ve been doing a series of picture posts lately (and the feedback has been great, thanks for your comments!) where I post my five favorite pictures from a place or region, for example: Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Europe, Lake Bled, Zion National Park, New York City, and others.

I’m stuck in Toronto on a business trip right now and the cold has made me miss home a bit.  I thought it was finally time to go through my extensive Dallas picture archive and narrow it down to my five favorite pictures of Dallas, Texas!

5. Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge

Camera: Sony a7rII
Lens: Canon 17mm T/S

I have hundreds of pictures of this bridge and its iconic arch, but this is my favorite.  The support cable leads your eye right into the arch while the negative space in the top right helps place the bridge in the greater context of the skyline and makes the arch almost seem a little bigger, to me at least.

4. Paddleboarder at White Rock Lake

Camera: Sony a7
Lens: Sony 16-35mm f4 at 24mm

One of my favorite photographers is Chris Burkard, whose work you’ve hopefully seen on his Instagram.  I love how he takes pictures of amazing landscapes but always manages to include some sort of human element in them.  In other words he won’t just take a picture of a lake, there will be a kayaker or something in the lake as well.  This picture is the closest I’ve gotten to a shot like that.  I was at my typical sunset spot at White Rock Lake in Dallas and was hoping for something interesting to happen during sunset and, sure enough, this random stranger paddleboarded by right in link of the sunset!

3. Thanks-Giving Square Chapel

Camera: Sony a7rII
Lens: Sony 16-35mm f4 at 24mm

Downtown Dallas has a random private park called Thanks-Giving Square.  Since 1976 it has been in the middle of the hustle and bustle of downtown and serves as a place of peace and quiet amid all the calamity.  There’s a chapel with a unique spiral roof, which looks great from the outside but even better from the inside, as stained glass windows are nestled within the spiral.  This is a well-known shot around Dallas but I was really glad to add my version of it to my portfolio.

2. Bluebonnets

Camera: Sony a7rII
Lens: Sony 70-200 f4 at 74mm

There’s an on-ramp to I30 West from Hampton Road where you can pull off and see one of the best views of downtown Dallas.  During springtime a huge, concentrated patch of bluebonnets grows at the east end of the median.  It’s thick enough that you can get super low with your camera and even though you missed focus end up with a great shot 🙂

1. The Dallas Skyline

Camera: Sony a7
Lens: Sony 70-200mm f4 at 70mm (with neutral density filter attached)

This is my favorite picture of Dallas.  June 2015 marked the end of tumultuous rainfall in the area, which left the Trinity River (which runs next to downtown Dallas) flooded to almost dangerous levels.  While some people heard “almost dangerous levels” I heard “REFLECTION SHOT OF DOWNTOWN OMGz”.  My buddy Braun and I went out to the Trinity River levee and found the perfect composition.  I set up my camera for a super long exposure and then had to sit there and wait.  Almost seven minutes later, I closed the shutter and looked on my camera to see how it turned out.  I was blown away, it turned out better than I ever imagined!

Here are some honorable mentions:

Which one was your favorite?  Where is your favorite place in Dallas?  Tell me in the comments below!