It's A St. Louis Thing

It's been going on for decades. Every December, a St. Louis County park near us puts up elaborate Christmas light displays. It's big and must take an enormous amount of work. People drive slowly through a set route with many oohs and ahs. You can also ride on a horse-drawn carriage. We were booked for that tonight but it's so cold the rides were canceled for the horses' safety.

So we drove through with Ellie yesterday. Cute, a little cheesy and immensely popular. Mrs. C did the driving while I shot out the window with the new Fuji. It still feels like I'm talking to someone from rural Alabama or Scotland. It's the same language, technically, but not always intelligible.

    

101 Things

Something new on graffiti-allowed section of the river flood wall. However, no list was provided. Maybe the panel is designed to be thought-provoking. You have to figure it out for yourself. Is it worth the bother?

There have been suggestions offered in the past. My high school library in The Bronx had a great selection of magazines. One of them was called Sing Out, the premier folk music magazine of the time. From time to time they ran columns by a great blues harmonica player, Tony "Little Son" Glover. 

In the spring of my senior year, when I had decided to attend St. Louis U, he wrote a piece called The Ten Best Things To Do When You Get The Blues. Number 1, the ultimate act, said simply: Piss in the Mississippi. It will give you a feeling of immortality.

So you can guess what one of first things 17 year old me did when he hit town. By the way, it didn't really help.

    

Monday Morning

Ellie on Christmas morning. My little friend got quite a haul. Green is her favorite color and her best gift was a new green bike with training wheels (she's ready for it) and a green bike helmet. When it gets warmer, there's gonna be action.

This is one of my first pictures with the Fujifilm X-T2. Its control and menu system is very different from my Canon DSLR and the transition will take some time. But it's so much lighter. I notice that the reds are truer than on my 5D Mk III, which tends to oversaturate them. I need a lot less sharpening and get somewhat less noise reduction at high ISO. On the other hand, I wish it had simple M, Tv and Av exposure settings, to use Canon's terminology. You can do the same thing on the Fuji but it's less intuitive. And it seems to underexpose when the scene is on the dark side. Lots to learn.

'Twas The Mid-Day Of Christmas

“Twas the mid-day of Christmas and all through The Lou,

Not a salesman was pitching, as far as I knew.

The wine racks were filled with the utmost of care

With hope that Aunt Flo doesn’t spill everywhere.

The children were plugged into PlayStation 2

With sounds of big mortars and gunfire, too.

While mom in her tennies and my Cardinals cap

Had just finished picking up holiday wrap.

Etc. etc. It was awfully quiet around town yesterday. If fact, haven't heard it so quiet since last Christmas when we had thick fog. Here, the parking lot in front of Nordstrom in the St. Louis Galleria is dead empty.

Beginning to take some shots with Santa's best gift of all, a Fujifilm X-T2 camera. It's wonderful, half the size and weight of my Canon DSLR but it's going to take some time to get used to. I can't get in the habit of adjusting the f stop with a ring at the base of the lens. My brilliant teacher, Bobbi Lane shoots with one and, although she gets paid for it, I trust her.

Correction! -- The REAL conservator appears!

.

Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate it today!
(I couldn't find a decorated indoor tree in the Negev to post, so this one up in our Meitar Forest will have to do. )

Being Jewish I don't do Christmas, but I DID get a present just now in the form of an unexpected comment. 
Jerusalem Hills Daily Photo blog is honored and surprised to hear from Georgios, the actual restorer from Golgotha in the Holy Sepulchre!
He wrote

Dear Dina . My name is Georgios and i am the man in the foto. I am Greek and i was working in the conservation of the wall paintings in Greekorthodox chapel in Golgotha. We were 3 professional conservators from Greece and we restored and cleaned the wallpaintings ,the icons and the Jesus on the Cross. It was an unbeliavable and fansinating experience. Thank you for your fotos.

This is the man in my recent blog post title Overhead Work in the Holy Sepulchre.
If you missed it, please take a look now at the four photos of Georgios at work.

After trying to find information online about the conservation work, I confess that I  assumed him to be a different expert, and thus made a big mistake in that post.   :(
My apologies to all!  That will teach me to be more careful in reporting and to "assume" nothing.

Shalom dear Georgios,
Thank you so much for miraculously showing up here in the blog on (new calendar) Christmas Day!  Thanks for your graciousness in forgiving my case of mistaken identity.  And thank you for sharing with us how it felt to give your help to such a holy place as the Holy Sepulchre. 
I wish I could have talked with you; I was so moved watching you work.  God bless you for your loving contribution to Golgotha. 
May you have a blessed Christmas season. 
With much respect,
Dina
.