We spent last night in Kansas City, about a four hour drive from St. Louis. Went out to dinner with a couple of Mrs. C's sibs, no new photos. So I got this one left from the botanical garden. The little thing didn't move. When I pointed it out to some children they said it had been in the same place when they had come in the other direction.
I could propose two theme songs for today, https://youtu.be/z_-Lz0q861s and https://youtu.be/cet97WIq4Aw.
A bit abstract. I like how the bands of algae on the pond in the Japanese garden look like geological layers, how its green blends into a reflection of the blue sky, and how the reflection of the tree adds another physical dimension.
We will be in Kansas City by this afternoon.
My best teacher for anything ever, the incomparable photographer Bobbi Lane, https://www.instagram.com/bobbilanephoto/?hl=en, got me hooked on infrared photography. You can have an old digital camera converted to an IR sensor, although the results vary greatly depending on what part of that spectrum your sensor captures (there are lots of choices.) Contact me if you want to find out how it's done. People often use this for striking grayscale images since greens come out white, or close to it. This is in the Japanese section of our botanical garden.
When I'm totally out of material and don't have an idea in my head there are a couple of go-to places I can count on. One of them is the large and complex Missouri Botanical Garden, often seen in these posts. Saturday was damp and unseasonably cool, bringing out saturated colors. I'm not usually a flower guy but I'm always ready to take the easy way out. No idea what this is and even my PlantSnap app couldn't identify it. Suggestions welcome.
This was a tough one and I have no one to blame but myself since it was my idea. My first thought was to buy a big heart shaped lollypop, stick it in the grass in front of the Arch, pour water on it and shoot it with a fish eye lens. Um, no lollypops in the local supermarket. Then I thought of putting a bunch of multi-colored M and Ms in a skillet and slowly turning up the heat until I realized that I'd have to clean up the mess. So I ended up with an ice pop on our patio. Rain and bacteria can deal with the residue.
Take a look at but don't touch other sticky substances from City Daily Photo members around the world at https://citydailyphoto.org/category/theme-days/.
I gotta get out on the street and shoot something new. For now, one more close-up of the business end of a sunflower. The post might be better described by something besides my words:
All of the recent sunflower pictures were taken in the Columbia Bottom State Conservation Area. Bottom here means river bottom land and sometimes flood plain, so there has to be a river nearby. This is the Missouri, just above its confluence with the Mississippi. That's around the bend to the right. It's interesting to stand on the point of land right at the junction and watch the waters mix. The Mississippi is very muddy and the Missouri much less so. You can see the two streams go a long way before they mix completely.
I gotta go find something sticky for theme day but what? Ice cream on the pavement?
