Posts tagged with "photography"
Sunday, 22. November 2009, 01:11:10
Columbia Bottom Conservation Area, photography, landscape

Columbia Bottom Conservation Area this evening. Winter continues its approach, but today was warm (64°F/18°C) and sunny for the bulk of the day. This helped generate a very pleasant ambience for a trip through this Mississippi Valley conservation area.
Unfortunately for both me and ducks, a hunt was in progress that kept me away from some of my favored spots, but it didn't really matter that much. I didn't even that bad for the ducks, the two and half hours I spent brought only one gunshot to my ear.

So I wandered around deliciously aimlessly, sopping up the light and warmth before the sun dipped below the horizon, stealing all the warmth of the day with its disappearance.
Saturday, 21. November 2009, 04:53:36
playhouse, head, smoking, joe's cafe
...

From the garden of Joe's Cafe (site of
Rose's wake).
The giant head, that you can climb into, is real. So is the cigarette, but the burning end and the smoke - well, that's a little playing...
Friday, 20. November 2009, 01:32:22
photography, mimic, Sweet potato, replica
...

My friend and work colleague Shobna grew this sweet potato. It has not been carved or altered in any way - this is how it came out of the ground.
Amazing!
Sunday, 15. November 2009, 02:34:49
photography, joe's cafe, Rose Shapiro

In February of this year, we attended a
book signing party at Joe's Cafe to celebrate our friend Rose Shapiro's recently published book of translated poems,
Poemas Escogidos : Selected Poems, 1958-2006 of
Carlos Germán Belli.
This afternoon we returned, but without Rose. She died this autumn after a long battle with cancer. A chance for some personal eulogies by those who knew her well.
A sad contrast then, to see black and white portrait posters of Rose instead the woman herself. Although an intensely enigmatic individual, she touched the lives of many of those around her in a positive way. This was reflected in heartfelt remembrances from a number of speakers.
The mood of the gathering was sombre but not overwhelmingly so and it gave several of us the chance to reconnect with old friends after some years apart.
Tuesday, 10. November 2009, 03:03:47
Dr. Edmund A. Babler Memorial State Park, memories, autumn, photography
...

This serious looking statue is a representation of
Dr. Edmund A. Babler, a St. Louis surgeon. The statue and the
3.8 square mile park in which it sits were commissioned and donated by Dr. Babler's brothers in his memory. Quite a memorial.
The park itself is found west of St. Louis in
Wildwood and consists of rolling hills on the south side of the Missouri River.
It's a rather beautiful park, but one I've avoided for many years because I have associated it with my first marriage. It was a fairly common hangout at that time, and is clearly still popular with young
West St. Louis County residents. This little group camped out beneath the statue very much resembled those I was part of in my younger days - it was a little eerie seeing them. Almost as if time had turned back.


Still, I have made it a sub-textual objective of mine to wash this entire region free of older and unhappier memories and my explorations over the past few years have worked towards this happy goal.
Just how far I have come was clear to me as I re-explored this pretty wood on Sunday afternoon. Dark emotions that would have clouded any such visit a decade or so ago were not there. I felt quite relaxed. Not altogether surprising - I have put together a very full and satisfying life since. But you never know...

I drove through the woods, finding these little pavilions that once I had partied under, now showing a delightful mossy age to match my own. A little further on I came to a burned-out building; too enthusiastic a camp fire, I guessed. Still, it gave me a pretty evening view though the bare trees.

While taking this shot, a very fit and energetic disabled woman swung by on her racing tricycle and asked me to move my car so she could access her van's wheelchair lift. She then did me the favor of spotting a deflated rear tire on my Toyota - not flat, but getting close. A brief interaction, but enough to generate a sense of the park of today and not a repository of yesterday's memories. For that, I was as grateful to her as I was about the tire, but I did not tell her so. Home then, out past the central area with that imposing statue, with those old memories vacuumed up and away into the sky.
Monday, 9. November 2009, 01:24:27
sunset, fults, autumn, Illinois
...


Yesterday's road trip that gave me
this picture took me along the Bluff Road in the
American Bottom floodplain across the Mississippi in Illinois.
The fields were active with harvesters collecting the remains of last corn crop, clipping the dead plants close to the earth. The result was an beautiful expansion of this already wide landscape.
The colors now are predominately browns. But so many browns. I felt I had never really seen so many browns.


I drove up a cemetery road onto the bluffs near
Fults, Illinois and found a lovely overlook down on to this tiny, sometimes flood-ravaged, town.
Then back home as the sky opened up and took all the light from the land.
Thursday, 5. November 2009, 02:05:27
Bellefontaine Cemetery, angel, photography, sidney rowland francis tomb

Another one from
Bellefontaine Cemetery on Sunday. The Sidney Rowland Francis tomb, a frequent subject of mine.
Tuesday, 3. November 2009, 00:20:05
skyline, autumn, photography, sunset
...

The Mississippi is in flood, unusual for November. I took the train downtown after work to catch these images.
Monday, 2. November 2009, 01:22:48
Bellefontaine Cemetery, autumn, photography
Saturday, 31. October 2009, 02:49:12
chantry wood, Bladerunner, photography, digital photography
...

There's a scene in Ridley Scott's science fiction film,
Bladerunnner, where one of the renegade androids tells of his failure to recover his small set of personal photographs. One of these prints, found and analyzed by the hero, will move the plot forward, but, beyond that, the scene is particularly poignant for dfferent reasons.
Bladerunner, like all truly fine future-based science-fiction stories, mixes together the past, present
and the future. A film print appears to be anachronism in this setting, but it serves the vital role of humanizing the genetically-engineered
replicants. At the time this film was made, the early 1980s, snapshots and film prints were still by far the most prevalent form of photography. Now film is practically dead and an explosion of digital images has replaced it. The unique and tangible artifact, the print, has been replaced by infinitely reproducible images displayable on a pantheon of different devices.
I like this. Still, I feel little doubt that digitization has changed the nature of photography irrevocably, somewhat analogous to the way that the first photographs changed the nature of portrait painting. It has made the infrequent common-place and in doing so has altered the weight of the art. These days it is not uncommon for me to go out and shoot well over 100 photographs in a single day, and I will find a small subset of those to be particularly pleasing, but no more can I reproduce the particular sense of uniqueness that I associate with those solitary snapshots taken when I was much younger.
This is a loss. Even if I have much better equipment, and a considerably better knowledge of photography to compensate.
These thoughts came to me as I regarded a scan of a very old photographic print this evening. The photograph was taken sometime in the late 1970s/early 1980s. It's faded and the color-balance is off. It was taken with a cheap camera and developed by a commercial machine. None of the skills I have learned in the years since went into taking the shot. It's fairly anonymous - there is no particular resonance in the scene with some particularly significant location or event. It's just a path coming out of Chantry Wood near Guildford, Surrey, where I grew up. I walked those woods dozens of times.
Yet, for some reason, I felt drawn to the wooden seat you see in the photograph above. I blew it up, reminding myself in the process of how the grain of analog film differs from the pixels of digital images (despite the fact that what you see is a digitized version). It's fuzzy yet despite the indistinct appearance, I find myself mentally drawn to that seat. I want to sit in it and smell the fragrance of those blurred red flowers all around it. At one time, I might have actually done so - I simply don't remember. But I was there once, looking at that scene with better eyes than I have now.
A single moment in time. One of countless other moments, most of which pass by without any real engagement at all. But this moment was caught, carelessly or not so carelessly - again I simply don't recall. And here it is, a faded print from a box scanned into a computer file. It is not only a window into another time, it is also a window into another window, a different way of seeing. One I hope I do not lose.
Sunday, 25. October 2009, 22:37:02
change, seasons, autumn, winter
...

Just as
this day (7 October) felt like the true pivot between summer and autumn (and dropping temperatures and relentless rain since seem to confirm this impression), yesterday evening felt like the first beginning of winter.
Only a hint, and more by the light than by the temperature that was still moderate or by the deciduous leaves, that, although now in main part gold and brown, still cling to their trees and, in some cases, remain resolutely green.
Still, there are bare trees to be seen and leaves gathering on the ground. It had been a clear, bright day until near the very end. Now a thin layer of cloud gathered on the horizon, veiling the sun. As the light failed, the temperature dropped and a slight shiver of cold passed through me.
That, and the gorgeous light you see in the photograph above, filled me with wintry thoughts. Pleasant thoughts. I am beginning to see, as I age, the delights of every season - indeed of every day. At times, I wonder how I managed to let so much of my life slip by without this awareness. Preoccupied by cares and worries or simply too depressed to register the beauties of the present.
There were good reasons why I felt so at those times, and it is in the overcoming of those barriers that I gained the wisdom to see as I do today. It is fruitless to regret your past, even as I have some reason for regret. What interests me today is how I have returned to some of the wonder and curiosity of my childhood, but completely free of the fears of the future that all-too-frequently accompanied those youthful thoughts. I find this to be a state of grace, and if I had pass through some painful periods to reach it, then they were well used.
Sunday, 25. October 2009, 20:25:27
Joe Page Bridge, photography, Hardin, Illinois River
...

Joe Page Bridge.
Sunday, 25. October 2009, 16:03:51
photography, University City Homecoming Parede, University City High School Band

Yesterday, the schools of University City held their annual Homecoming Parade.
My son had been enlisted by his school to help videotape the event, and I went along for company.
I love the sound of student marching bands. Always enthusiastic with just a hint of off-key playing to the give the horns a unique and to my mind very attractive tone.


Sunday, 25. October 2009, 02:33:46
sluice valve, diesel engine, belt drive, Mississippi River
...


When something, however off-beat, interests me, I tend to keep tabs on it. Today I returned to my favorite
sluice valve with most satisfactory results. To be precise, my visit solved the nagging issue as to how the
sluice valve was actually operated.
This had puzzled me ever since I first came across it. How nice it was then to find this elegant solution - a mobile diesel engine and belt drive.

I was the only person here by the Mississippi on this gorgeous evening (apart from a Conservation Policeman checking to see if I was fishing on the sly). A lovely evening marred only by the fact that I dropped and damaged one of my older cameras. It still works, but I broke the auto-exposure somehow.

Not an absolutely essential feature, fortunately, as long as I shoot using manual settings and I often do that anyway.
Sunday, 18. October 2009, 22:26:28
Bellefontaine Cemetery, Anheuser chapel, gargoyle, stained glass
...

A particularly inviting fall day this Sunday, and I took my camera out to Bellefontaine Cemetery to see what I could see.
Usually, I am one of only a few visitors to this enchanting cemetery, but today
Trailnet was raising money by organising a treasure hunt of sorts for about 35 bicyclists who were to ply the many, maze-like, roads that criss-cross this cemetery.
But this was yet to begin when I arrived at the
Anheuser (of Anheuser-Busch brewery fame) chapel.
It's a striking building, that cost several thousand dollars to build at the beginning of the last century. A sum that would translate into about three million of today's dollars, I was assured by a lady who sat perched on a seat by the building to assist the bicycling adventurers to come.
Much of this must have gone into the steeple, an extraordinarily ornate piece complete with miniature gargoyles.


As is the case with all the private chapels on the Bellefontaine site, it was impossible to go inside as the doors were locked.
So I peered in through the door to see a lovely and very English Anglican-style stained glass window at the back of the chapel. It was brightly lit by the afternoon sun. I set up my tripod to photograph it, and was able, by virtue of the reflective quality of the glass door, to capture the stained glass seemingly hovering over the green trees of the cemetery.
Sunday, 18. October 2009, 03:34:12
american bottom, autumn, Illinois, mississippi bluffs
...


A drive through the
American Bottom floodplain this afternoon.
This is a view of the Mississippi River bluff from below.
A steep walk up Salt Lick Trail led me to this overlook of the plain. Such beautiful brown fields.

The setting sun magnified the autumnal red and gold.


Another magical day.
Friday, 16. October 2009, 02:26:13
sunset, rails, photography, st. charles country

Playing with a shot from the same set that gave me
these photographs. Considering today has been nothing but diffuse grey clouds and no shadows, it's good to be reminded of a clear, warm, summer's day.
Sunday, 11. October 2009, 23:51:36
Weeping angel, Calvary Cemetery, hyland-carney tomb, photography
...

Ever since my son and I watched '
Blink', a spectacularly scary
Dr. Who episode, I've been on a look-out for weeping angel statues.
At last I found one. In
Calvary Cemetery this afternoon. I was sure to keep a close eye on it while taking these photographs.
Sunday, 11. October 2009, 16:28:26
Chain of Rocks Bridge, photography
The Chain of Rock Bridge in the center and behind that, a glistening white band, the
New Chain of Rocks Bridge.
The famous
U.S. Route 66 used the old Chain of Rocks Bridge. It is now a bicycle route and pedestrian walkway, with all traffic using the far plainer but straight New Chain of Rocks Bridge. As you can, the old bridge was built in a 'V' shape to cut costs and utilize the river bedrock, but the turn in the middle bridge made life difficult for tractor-trailer trucks passing each other.
In the river, just before the old bridge, you can see one of two water intakes disguised as a mansion!
Sunday, 11. October 2009, 03:08:08
plant, crop, photography, sorghum

What is this plant?
I found it growing in a field on
Chouteau Island this afternoon. Looks like some sort of bean to me, but just which one I do not know.
Any suggestions?
Thanks to
Linda and
Sanshan, I am now sure it is
sorghum. Amazingly, I have never noticed it before.
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