I'M MELTING

Like the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz, that's the feeling I sometimes get from a Lensbaby image of a figure. You can get the sense that unnatural forces are at work, that matter is beginning to dissolve and vanish. (Ever read The Gone Away World by Nick Harkaway?)

This is Eros Bendato by Igor Mitoraj in Citygarden. It is enigmatic. The blindfold isn't doing a very good job but there are no eyes behind it to see. Children frequently crawl around in the hollow interior.            

YOU'LL NEVER KNOW WHAT HIT YOU

An old favorite, Tom Otterness' Kindly Geppetto, done with the Lensbaby in Citygarden. I really like his work. On the surface it looks so simple, even childish, but it often expresses pathos or tragedy. Another favorite example is his Crying Giant, https://flic.kr/p/8obccf, in front of the contemporary art museum in Kansas City. 

This refers to the children's tale of Geppetto, the puppet maker, and Pinocchio, his creation who yearned to be a real boy. I can't say whether what we see here is an act of creation or destruction.            

ZIP

What lies just beneath the surface of downtown St. Louis? Does anyone really want to know? Maybe beer monsters, the ghosts of Lewis and Clark or Anheuser and Busch, or maybe just pipes and cables. There is a system of steam pipes that brought heat and power to downtown buildings. It's still around.

So, another Lensbaby shot. This is a new installation and I don't know the title or sculptor. Didn't take a picture of the plaque and the Citygarden website is not up to date. In any case, I wouldn't pull the handle back farther.     

I FOUND MY LENSBABY

Twenty years of digital photography has left me with a lot of . . . stuff. It gets piled up in boxes, more or less sorted by brand (Canon, Olympus, and, for a while now, Fujifilm). I was digging around in the Fuji box looking for something when I came across my near-forgotten Lensbaby.

Ever hear of these or play with one? Look at https://lensbaby.com/ . It is a special lens that has a focused center spot (which can be moved) that becomes progressively blurred toward the edges (which can be varied). There are quite a few different varieties and diopters you can switch in and out.

So I took the Lensbaby and my Fujifilm X-T3 to Citygarden after work yesterday. This is Aristide Maillol's La Riviere. I think it worked. Might have some more of this.   

GAP

If I'm out of ideas for a post the easiest thing to do is to go to the graffiti-permitted section of the Mississippi floodwall south of the Arch.  There is a time of year, known as Paint Louis, when the whole thing is redone. However, people repaint parts of it here and there as they please so there is constant change. This gap in the wall gives access to an industrial area that serves the river barges. That gray horizontal streak in the lower center is one of them. The tall smokestacks are on a factory across the Mississippi in Illinois, more than a mile away.