Orchids come in an astounding variety of shapes, sizes and colors. I'm no botanist (where I grew up the ground cover was cement and asphalt) but I've never seen anything like this. A sign said it was called something like a spider orchid. I don't think of spiders as curly and pink but what do I know. Looks to me roll-up candy.
Orchids share a basic morphology but come in lots of variations. The range at the Botanical Garden's annual show is bewildering. There is an equally wide variety of ways to photograph them. One approach is a trio with shallow depth of field.
A similarly shaped orchid with a different color scheme. I bumped up the saturation and contrast to see what would happen.
I don't know much about orchids other than that they are epiphytes and sometimes look, um, provocative. This looks like the same variety of flower as in yesterday's post, but with shoots and buds that I assume will become new blossoms.
Time for a change. The annual orchid show is nearing the end of its February run at the Missouri Botanical Garden. We wanted to get there in time but, on a clear winter Saturday, it was so crowded as to be unmanageable. The lumbar facet joints were complaining loudly so we got a third of the way through and decided to come back on a weekday - one of the benefits of being old. Still, got some decent images.
I got a couple of decent street portraits at the Mardi Gras parade. This one shows how the drizzle dampened streets but not spirits. Speaking of which, she's not drinking alcohol. QT, Qwik Trip, is a chain of gas stations with big convenience stores. The contents of the cup are undoubtedly full of sugar.
Today marks the completion of my 76th orbit around the sun. Doing pretty well for that, still upright, taking pictures and flying. In March and April I'll hit seven countries (albeit some briefly) plus a plane change in an eighth. Don't slow down.
Well, I guess it's sculpture of a sort. T Tex here and a triceratops, just out of the frame to the right, stalk Forest Park beside the planetarium. A quick look online suggests that the monster's habitat was subtropical forests and plains in what is now the western U.S. and Canada. It probably wouldn't like our current weather (it was cold-blooded, after all). It is still frigid here but the sun was out Monday and the streets are clear.
Anheuser-Busch use to be headquartered in St. Louis. Some years ago it was taken over or merged into the Belgian-Brazilian giant Inbev, which moved the North American headquarters to New York. Still, their biggest American brewery is here and it marked the end of the Mardi Gras parade route.
Another corporate headquarters lost to St. Louis. Still, it was announced yesterday that Boeing is moving its defense offices back here from a suburb of Washington. We were the HQ when it was McDonnell Douglas.
Krewe is a word taken from Mardi Gras in New Orleans, used to identify a social group that has a float or performs together in the parade. A long-standing and delightfully wacky local one is the Gateway Precision Lawn Chair Krewe. They perform close order drill with light folding lawn chairs. I caught them rehearsing on an empty parking lot.
Fredbird is the mascot of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team. He show up at all sorts of public events, besides his duties at games. Here he is hanging out at a gas station along the parade staging area that is losing its sales for a half day. The men in black are members of the Shriners, a Masonic organization, who buzz around the streets in mini go-karts.
Do NOT send your arrows this way. You have to remember, though, that the Mardi Gras parade was held on Valentine's Day.
It was drizzling yesterday morning when I decided to take a chance and go downtown to check out the Mardi Gras parade. As one of our colleagues reminded me, there is no bad weather, just bad clothing. The parade's policy is to go on, rain or shine. I go early and work the staging area, where the participants ane milling around and everyone is happy to pose.
Today, Saturday, is supposed to be our Mardi Gras parade. The organizers claim it is the second biggest in the U.S., after New Orleans. But they have several over a few days and we just have the one shot. The forecast is for rain all day but, from what I know, the parade isn't canceled. The organizers couldn't afford to lose all sales at their party tents. So the usual mass swilling on the street will be washed away.
Another dog dressed as a movie character. It certainly has the right face. I don't think earthly pups or their interstellar cousins drink Busch beer, though.
The big Mardi Gras parade is scheduled for tomorrow but it's supposed to rain most of the day. Don't know how the organizers will handle that.
It has been noted in these pages that St. Louis likes an excuse to drink in public. That pass time was clearly on display on Sunday during the dog parade. It won't come close, though, to what you will see on the street next Saturday during the main Mardi Gras parade. Hoping the rain holds off.
And owners. I dress in dark colors when I'm shooting on the street to blend in. People in the dog parade tend to go in the opposite direction. I guess I'm more of a observer than a participant (and besides, we just have a cat). Somebody has to make the record.
Moving on from outdoor sculpture for a while. Lots of different material coming up because it's silly season in St. Louis (not that people take us very seriously). Mardi Gras is a big deal here. I think it started with community organizations but it's all commercialized now-still fairly crazy but orderly enough. Yesterday was the traditional dog parade, sponsored by Purina, the pet food company that is headquartered here. Lots of wacky puppies with owners to match.
Another piece by Igor Mitoraj downtown, but it a place with less traffic than Eros Bendato, seen here a number of times (https://tinyurl.com/nhj8hufr). It's called Torso Di Ikaro, Torso of Icarus, and I find it puzzling. It looks to be neither flying or crashing to earth, although the six-pack abs are ready for great effort. The hollow and its shell could become a balloon, ready to challenge the sun in a way a whole body could not. There is a bit of discussion at https://racstl.org/public-art/torsi-di-ikaro/ .
This picture was taking yesterday, Friday. By the time you see this post the sculpture will probably be gone from the site. Synergism by William Conrad Severson and Saunders Schultz has sat at this corner downtown for 50 years (some background at https://racstl.org/public-art/synergism/). It is a mirrored stainless steel cube within a cube within a cube, playing wonderful visual tricks with its surroundings. There was an article in yesterday's newspaper, https://tinyurl.com/2zkx6um5, stating that it is being removed today for extensive restoration. At a later date it will be reinstalled in a park in the nether suburbs. Another loss for downtown.
Mariposas, butterflies in Spanish. This unusual work is found on the side of the Central Branch of the St. Louis Public Library, a wonderful building worth exploring for its own sake. It seems like a perfect metaphor for the wonders of reading. Now, if I could only get my granddaughter's face out of the Roblox screen , , ,
Big Brother may actually be watching you. We in the United States have reason to worry about such things these days. Tony Tasset's Eye at Laumeier Sculpture Park could have cameras embedded in it for all we know. Keep your head down.
One more by Harry Weber. Actually, this is just across the river in East St. Louis, Illinois. Malcolm Martin was a corporate lawyer in a big firm. My tiny firm was in the same building so I saw him around on occasion. He was successful, never married and wanted to do some good with his money. The land directly across the Mississippi from the Arch was vacant. Martin wanted to establish a viewing point for the river, Arch and downtown, preserved for the public. His bequest made it happen. It's a wonderful place.
This is an old picture. The object behind Martin is a one of many sculptured cakes marking the 250th anniversary of the founding of St. Louis.
Chuck Berry is a native St. Louisan. In his later years he lived with family in a compound on the edge of the area. He frequently performed in a small space in the basement of locally famous Blueberry Hill, a bar and restaurant across the street from this statue. The performance venue was known as The Duck Room, after Berry's signature walk.
This is another work by Harry Weber. I knew him slightly since he asked to use my picture of another of his statues (see tomorrow) in a book about his stuff. He said he would send me a copy of the book. He didn't. Nobody ever does. (Talking about you, Museum of Modern Art.) What Weber did do is get me into the private reception for Berry at Blueberry Hill, resulting in this picture - https://tinyurl.com/cdce9hhh .
A sculpture by Harry Weber, whose work is all around here, called The Captains' Return. It depicts Meriwether Lewis and William Clark returning here in 1806 after their two-year so-called voyage of discovery, all the way up the Missouri River and then into Oregon. A bit about the work (with a really terrible photo) at https://www.nps.gov/places/the-captains-return.htm. The statue used to be a bit upriver and lower down on the levee, where it would sometimes be inundated (https://tinyurl.com/y6mww2js). The explorers probably would not want to come through today's icy Mississippi.
