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I shot Exit – The Color Factory, Houston on what was quite possibly my last pre-pandemic outing.
The Color Factory is an interactive art exhibit. Originally in San Francisco (2017), the concept space was unable to extend its lease. After that, the Color Factory opened in new york City in 2018 and in 2019 opened this second location in Houston.
The new york and Houston locations are different, drawing their inspirations from the cities in which they are located.
As an interactive exhibit, the space encourages photography. On entry to the first space, you register a token with your e-mail address. Then you use the token to activate cameras mounted in the various exhibit spaces. At the end of your visit, you return the token and they email your photos to you. Still, most people carry a camera these days so you can take capture your own visions. The exhibit space cameras are fun though.
Exit
As Houston is the home of NASA the colors of NASA are found throughout. The final room on the journey is a NASA-themed dark blue space with 50,000 fiber optic lights creating a night sky and 40,000 white plastic balls forming a massive moon-themed ball pit.
While my daughter and friend were surfing in the ball pit, I noticed the exit from the space. I saw a clear science-fiction space theme in this short corridor. In my mind, I heard the phrase, “Set phasers to stun,” and was disappointed that the door at the end swung on a hinge rather than slid open with a “shhhhh” sound.
I felt like I had to wait for ages for the space to clear of people. I wished I had a phaser of my own. The red hoop on the left is a ‘treat counter' where they were handing our black ice cream treats when I visited. Visitors would lounge in the circular spaces on the sidewalls consuming their treats before departing.
Fortunately, the ball pit is a people magnet. Most were visiting in groups and they all seemed attracted to the ball pit. That gave me some occasions when no one was in the exit corridor.
When I look at this image I sometimes see a corridor on a space station and sometimes the face of a robot with white lasers shooting out from its eyes. I don't know if the robot face was intentional on the part of the creators or just a result of the choices I made when processing this image.
You can learn more about the Color Factory, Houston and book tickets here.
Image Processing:
- Simple contrast adjustments in Adobe Lightroom
- Contrast and levels adjustments in Adobe Photoshop
- Color adjustments in NIK Color Efex Pro 4 by DxO
- Finishing adjustments in Adobe Lightroom
Camera and Lens:
- Canon EOS 5D Mark III
- Canon EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM
- Handheld at ISO 800, 1/50 sec at f/5.0
