The return of gratuitous cuteness. There is a delightful place in St. Louis called Mauhaus Cat Cafe and Lounge. For a small entry fee, you can get a beverage, a pastry and hang around with a bunch of friendly kitties. They are all adoptable. Our granddaughter, Ellie, just loves the place. We took her and her best friend yesterday.
QuikTrip, Big Bend Boulevard and I 44, Kirkwood. The underside of these canopies at newer stations are all white, with very bright lights. And all very clean. Most of them are edged in vivid red (except BP, green, and Mobil, blue). The feel is high tech.
I’ll come back to this theme later. There is something very cutesy to shoot today.
Circle K, Elm Avenue and Watson Road, Crestwood, very close to where we live. Don’t know how much longer I’ll continue with this. It’s different.
I’ve become fascinated with the look of contemporary American gas stations at night. The inspiration is a favorite painting by the artist Ed Ruscha. It’s tricky to make this work. It needs a dark location, preferably without adjacent structures.There has to be enough surrounding space to get a good angle. A bit more of this to come.
For locals, this at the northeast of Big Bend and Laclede Station in Webster Groves.
I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I attended a fundraiser for Artica at the William A. Kerr Foundation. There were to be performances but no schedule was published. It was wrapping up when I arrived. There was the sound of a trumpet coming from the basement. I went down and found one last musician.
The corner of Lewis and O’Fallon Streets in the post-industrial wastelands north of downtown. Normally somewhere angels fear to tread, especially at night. However, off-frame to the right is the William A. Kerr Foundation, in its unusual building that hosts all sorts of arts events. On this particular night there was a party, fund raiser and silent auction for Artica.
This old picture shows what you can get when you do an infrared conversion in color. The scene is one I showed recently in monochrome. Color is more technically difficult. I will have to go back through the tutorials if I shoot more of these.
A long-time reader of this blog complained politely that she was tired of gloomy, high contrast monochrome infrared images. The original IR images are very magenta. It’s not hard to manipulate them into dramatic B&Ws, but there is also a way to make otherworldly color pictures. I used to do it more often but it’s complicated and I don’t remember the process well. Maybe I’ll post one of the old ones tomorrow. For now, arches from the World’s Fair Pavilion in an icy blue.
I am so out of material. It’s cold and wet today and miserable for outdoor shooting. I’ll scramble.
Um, maybe some mixed metaphors or loose associations. Our trips to Argentina over the years have made me a big fan of Carlos Gardel, sort of the Elvis Presley of tango, the king of the genre. One of my favorite songs, performed with such intensity, is Questa Abajo, or, roughly, down the hill. It works here. You could tumble roughly and dangerously down the stairs and terraces from the World’s Fair Pavilion. You could walk smoothly down the stairs.
More infrared. A small lake in Forest Park contains what is called a bandstand surrounded by a lovely garden, although I have no knowledge of any performance being held there. It would be hard to hear across the water, which makes me wonder about its purpose. Beauty is good enough.
It’s not an arrogant mythical king but it is just as futile. Someone mentioned in a comment to Monday’s post that the missing sphere from the line could be seen at the upper right of the frame. But no, it is a separate sculpture by the locally famous Bob Cassily, co-founder of the nothing-else-like-it -in the-world City Museum. The turtle may try to climb the sphere or push the it forward but no amount of effort leads progress.
The other side of our World’s Fair Pavilion, down a long terraced hill. It’s December, but in warmer months an interesting fountain flows over these blocks. It looks more dramatic in IR.
I had some time yesterday to get out to Forest Park with my infrared-converted camera. Working with these files in color is complicated. It depends on the band of IR wavelengths your camera sensor sees, making subtle adjustment in the channel mixer in Photoshop and other things I understand poorly. Monochrome is easier. The chlorophyll in leaves turns white and bright blue skys turn dark. Forest Park as you never see it.
A Christmas tree farm outside of Midland, Michigan. The whole family went to pick out something for the kids to decorate. The outside displays were a bit over the top. Mrs. C and I don’t get worked up over the holidays. We’re not sentimental.
Parts of the Dow Chemical complex in Midland, Michigan. It may be a bit odd, but the city has a parkway running by here and built an overlook. Dow has a complex and sometimes controversial history (you could look at the Wikipedia article). It was a principal manufacturer of napalm and Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. It is a huge, worldwide business but keeps its corporate headquarters in Midland. Hard to imagine what rich people find to do there.
Midland, Michigan, where my son and his family live. It has lots of amenities, much of it funded, one way or the other, by its economic anchor, Dow Chemical Company. One unusual feature is the Tridge - not bridge - connecting three points in city parks near downtown. The center spans the confluence of the Chippewa and Tittawabasee Rivers, which eventually empty into Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron. Mrs. C and son Andy check the view in the cold.
No new local material so I’m going with my best available. Who doesn’t want more pictures of their grandkids? Audrey, Josie and Ellie pile on and I couldn’t have gotten arrangement if I knew how to direct posing (which I don’t). Josie, on top, is the instigator. Irrepressible, and perhaps a prodigy. Not through the first semester of kindergarten, she sat by me watching Weird Al videos on TV and read me the captions.
Another marginal phone pic, but that what’s we got. All three grandchildren in our hotel room with wet hair after the pool. Ellie, 11, the one from St. Louis, with her cousins Josie, 5, below center, and Ellie’s bestie, Audrey, 9, upper right. These kids have so much fun together that Ellie doesn’t want to leave but we have to go home today.
…stick of butter. We’re up here in Michigan with our son, Andy, his wife, Claire, and all three of our grandchildren. St. Louisan Ellie and Michigander Audrey contribute what they can by cutting a stick of butter into pats. I didn’t shoot anything yesterday so this phone shot by Andy will suffice.
A place we know all too well, O’Hare Airport in Chicago. We used to come here regularly when both of our children were at the University of Chicago. Now, being American Airlines customers since they took over St. Louis-based TWA, we change here on our way to lots of places. Today’s destination was Flint, Michigan, an hour’s drive from the home of our son and his family in Midland.
American went to a lot of expense to hang all the garlands. Humbug. I’d rather they spent it on a little more room in the torture cabin.
A decaying picnic shelter overlooking Lake Mattheissen, Illinois, that we saw yesterday. The structure has a beautiful view, particularly in fall, but was not built for the ages. How odd that the designers went to the trouble of including wooden Doric columns.
No idea what to post tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day in the US. We are flying to Michigan today to spend the weekend with our son and his family. Maybe I’ll shoot something banal when we change planes at O’Hare.
We did a brief road trip the weekend before last to visit an old college friend and his wife. They live in Ottawa, Illinois, about a four hour drive north of here. The area contains the valley of the Illinois River, which, with a little engineering, flows south from Chicago and meets the Mississippi north of St. Louis. There are beautiful state parks in the area. This is Matthiessen Lake. It flows into a gentle waterfall over limestone strata, but I wasn’t up to going all the way down the hill and climbing back up.
Big wind-up to the walk through Garden Glow at our botanical garden. The view is looking back across the central axis reflecting pool toward the Climatron. I took many shots of this view as the light patterns and colors constantly changed. This was my favorite.
We are in the air Wednesday, along with hoards of other Americans, for our Thanksgiving holiday. We were away on a road trip last weekend, so I may use some images from that as a bridge.
A tunnel of changing colors in motion. Not quite the same effect as when the Starship Enterprise goes into warp drive, but still pretty cool. The path is one way, with the lights moving away from visitors. You could feel like you are being sucked through. What happens when you come out the other end?
Another bauble in Garden Glow. The Climatron is a geodesic dome that contains four climatic zones, formed by complex internal shapes and air systems. As with lots of the other glow features, the colors change and pulse.
Another year-after-year favorite at Garden Glow. The lines of small lanterns are perfectly straight. The light colors and patterns are in constant flux. This might be better represented by a video, but this is a photography blog.
Not the riot of color found in most other displays at Garden Glow, but I like its simplicity and subtlety. And there is no way to find your way through it, only the long way around.
A tunnel of changing colors in motion. Not quite the same effect as when the Starship Enterprise goes into warp drive, but still pretty cool. The path is one way, with the lights moving away from visitors. You could feel like you are being sucked through. What happens when you come out the other end?
Another bauble in Garden Glow. The Climatron is a geodesic dome that contains four climatic zones, formed by complex internal shapes and air systems. As with lots of the other glow features, the colors change and pulse.
Just around the bend from the viewpoint in yesterday’s post, visitors to Garden Glow pass through curtains of pulsing light. A single exposure can only capture a moment. These lights were constantly changing color and pattern.
Again, no energy to go out and shoot so pulling from the archives. It rained all day yesterday anyway. The statue is in front of the St. Louis Planetarium, and so is probably looking to the stars. Still…
Mrs. C and I are going to the symphony this afternoon. It seems appropriate that we are hearing the Mozart Requiem.
One blow after another. The execrable Matt Gaetz as Attorney General? Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as Secretary off Health and Human Services, someone who discourages using vaccines and thinks something in the water can make children transgender? Seriously? I’m drifting into a personal, unproven conspiracy theory that Trump, full of schadenfreude, really wants to wreck the country. So, another old photo, an infrared looking over Forest Park, where the trees are white and the sky is dark.
Well, I thought I was doing better until I found out that the president-elect had nominated Satan’s stepson to be attorney general, our chief law enforcement official. I got the news while waiting at our major hospital for a steroid shot in my lower back. Maybe I should have asked for one in my head, too.
Anyway, another shot from my visit to Forest Park. The statue is called The Apotheosis of Saint Louis (Louis IX of France). His history is, let’s say, controversial but the statue is a local icon.
It was time to drag myself out of the house and do something. Give myself a mental health day, so I took my camera and went to Forest Park. Autumn has come late here. Sometimes we get no color at all; leaves turn brown and just drop. October was very warm and dry, not good for leaf color. November has been cooler and wetter, so we are getting something. The view here is the top of Art Hill, with the art museum and the heroic statue of St. Louis in the background.
I still don’t have the drive to get out with my camera, so I’m continuing to riffle through the archives, looking for images that express my feelings. This was a clothing shop for the young and hip on Cherokee Street in St. Louis. The store itself failed before too long. Monday was Veterans Day in the US and I was reminded of Trump's comment a few years ago that our military personnel who died in service to their country were suckers and losers.
Still, there is some light at the end of my tunnel. Mrs. C and I are taking a weekend trip to northern Illinois, to see the person who was once probably my best friend. We shared a cheap apartment when we were in grad school. We were out together on St. Patrick’s Day, 1973, when I met Carolyn in a bar. We’ve been in contact some online but haven’t been face to face in years, maybe decades. I’m looking forward to this.
Grant us peace. We could use some uplift after the week we’ve had.
As I mentioned, we went to a performance of Mozart’s Requiem yesterday. One of the good things about this town is that we have a spectacularly good symphony orchestra, really top tier. That’s our wooly-headed music director, Stéphane Denève, on the podium. The music was at times terrifying but ended with hope. I’m grasping for some.
Again, no energy to go out and shoot so pulling from the archives. It rained all day yesterday anyway. The statue is in front of the St. Louis Planetarium, and so is probably looking to the stars. Still…
Mrs. C and I are going to the symphony this afternoon. It seems appropriate that we are hearing the Mozart Requiem.
Well, I’m not hyperventilating or pulling the covers over my head and refusing to get out of bed. The photo is obviously not from St. Louis (it’s Siena, Italy), but I’m still despondent about what my country decided it wanted to be. Mrs. C and I just decided to visit Ireland in the spring and I could probably get an Irish passport since my grandfather was born there, but that just leads to impractical fantasies. It all makes me think of a quote by the old acerbic journalist, H. L. Mencken. You may know it, but I won’t repeat it here.
I usually consider myself an even-tempered guy, getting through the ups and downs of life pretty smoothly. However, I can’t remember when I last felt as depressed as I have been the last couple of days. No motivation to go out and photograph something so I pulled out this image, taken earlier this year. It’s a iPhone shot using the TinType app.
As I prepare this post Tuesday evening, I do not know which side of the force will prevail. Now I lay me down to sleep...
A benefit of public events like the Halloween party is a request for a picture is rarely declined. A bad thing is that is that it can very hard to talk to the subjects and learn something about them. Deafening music is blaring from the stage. People are walking through your shots and friends of the subjects don’t notice the photographer. Still, these young women wanted to be on display but I never got to find out why.
I may have to do music instead of an image tomorrow, either the Hallelujah Chorus or somebody’s Dies Irae. Or I - and all of us - may have to hold our breath.
