NOT KANSAS

 

The Sunflower State, although we'll be there in a couple of weeks. Mrs. C and I went on an excursion yesterday to an out-of-the-way corner of the suburbs, tucked behind the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. In one of the few good works of our benighted state government, the Missouri Department of Conservation maintains the Missouri Bottoms Conservation Area, https://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/places/columbia-bottom-conservation-area, bottoms in the sense of river bottomland. It has planted 14 fields of sunflowers, staggered to bloom in sequence through the summer. Quite a sight.

The only issue with these pictures is the haze from the Oregon fires a half-continent away. This picture has been heavily edited in Photoshop and still lacks something, in my opinion.                

I SUPPOSE I SHOULD MAKE IT CLEAR THAT I'M HOME

I keep playing with the infrared, though. Louis never dreamed of a world like this.                 

STL DPB ON THE ROAD AND IN THE VISIBLE SPECTRUM

There are more infrared pix I'd like to play with but, to make things easy, I thought I'd come back to some Pacific pastoral. This is part of the main beach at Tamarindo, taken from the edge of a restaurant. Outside of bigger towns and cities, it's hard to find a restaurant in Costa Rica that isn't open-sided.                    

STL DPB BACK FROM THE ROAD BUT HARD UP FOR MATERIAL

We've been home four or five days but I haven't been out to shoot anything new in The Lou. I got so used to being indolent in Costa Rica that I need a smack to break me out of my doldrums. So it's back to infrared pictures from Playa Langosta. It's fun to play with the spectral highlights you get in IR pictures. If I understand correctly, the inside of most lenses have coatings to prevent visible light from bouncing around much but nothing for these longer wavelengths.               

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - APOCALYPSE, UH, LAST WEEK

From the beach fire dance shown here a few days ago. The finale looks like the end of days or the judgement of the locals, known as Ticos. Except for all the tourists taking photo or videos with their phones.

This has turned into the not-exactly-post-pandemic summer of wandering. Two and a half weeks until we leave for Kansas City and my Mrs. C's area of Kansas. Four weeks after we get back from there it's off to some interesting places in central Europe. It's probably good to get away from Missouri, which is experiencing a sharp increase in infections and deaths, almost all of which are among the unvaccinated. Anyone who wants a shot can get it for free so draw your own conclusions.