Photo Experiment

For most of the last five months I've set aside my trusty - and heavy - Canon 5D Mark III and have been using new equipment. The Canon was getting to be too much weight for my old neck, shoulders and back. I wanted something lighter that would maintain image quality. An old teacher recommended the Fujifilm X-T2.

It's pretty cool. Although it uses an ASP-C sensor (not full sized), I think the image quality is better than the Canon. An interesting feature is that it can emulate many Fujifilm film looks. They have developed many over the years. This picture of the Grand Basin in Forest Park emulates their Acros black and white film, with the addition of a red filter. I like it.

Early flight to New York this morning. Something very unusual to do outside of the city itself tomorrow. Reports by Sunday.

Fool On The Hill

He was sitting on the wall under the great statue of St. Louis, gazing through the fog down Art Hill to the Grand Basin. I walked by under the wall, taking pictures. I said hi. He said hi. I asked him what he had with him. A glass chess set and a volume of Aristotle, he said. I asked if I could take his picture. He said sure. I did, said thanks, and then walked away with a tune in my head.          

Chill

 

People hanging out in and around the Grand Lagoon in Forest Park on a freakishly warm winter day. The area is so big you can't cover it all in a photo except with an aerial shot (like this). We earthbound photographers have to go for details.                                         

Hey, Salman Rushdie is in town. Opera Theatre of Saint Louis is doing a stage version of Shalimar The Clown this spring. He will be speaking about it this afternoon and we have tickets. I'm a big Rushdie fan and I think I've read all his novels, currently on his most recent, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty Eight Days (which is to say, a thousand and one nights). Hope they allow photographs.       

 

Another View Of Sunset

Yesterday's photo was taken from about where those people are standing at the center-right. This is facing the other direction, looking down Art Hill, in the last minutes before sunset. Blue and gold.
               

Girl On The Run

From where, to where? The scene is the end of the Grand Basin in Forest Park, opposite the Art Museum, just after sunset.

This is one of STL's primo spots for wedding pictures when the light is better. I think this young woman was part of a very small wedding party. She walked over to my right, had a look around, then ran back to the left. Who knows why.                  

NYC In Exile

I changed educational venues from the Bronx to mid-town St. Louis in September 1967. It was a bit of a shock. After a few days, my thoughts were something like, "Oh my Gawd, I'm stuck in the provinces!" and started wondering if I could transfer back to NYU. I got over it. 

Still, we ex New Yorkers are all over. This young woman could be a student at nearby Washington University. Lots of us there. My sister attended WU. When I, the oldest of four, went to college a thousand miles from home, my mother thought her children hated her. When the next sibling, 18 months younger than me, went to the other big school across town, she was sure. (The younger two stayed in the Northeast.)

The scene here is the walk beside the Grand Lagoon in Forest Park. Art Hill and the St. Louis Art Museum are in the back.