A last image (for now) from the HYBOCOZO exhibit at the Missouri Botanical Garden. The caption is the name of this piece. The building on the left is the mausoleum of Henry Shaw, the 19th Century philanthropist who founded the place.
Tomorrow is City Daily Photo's monthly theme day, on the subject of travel. I'll be posting what I think is the best photo of my career.
Close-up of one of the faces of a work in the HYBYCOZO exhibit called Rhombi. It's easier to perceive from farther away but think of the central hexagon as an approximate cube with the nearest corner in the lower right, sitting in a recessed space that fits it.
That's what this one at the HYBYCOZO exhibit at the botanical garden makes be think of. The title of the piece is Point of View. Looks more like a sacred flame.
Something new and interesting to photograph today.
That's the title of this piece at the HYBYCOZO exhibit at the Missouri Botanical Garden. The dictionary built into my Mac defines the word as an arrangement of shapes closely fitted together, especially of polygons in a repeated pattern without gaps or overlapping. It sits in front of the Climatron, a geodesic dome with such sophisticated air systems that it contains four different climate zones.
That's the title of this trio of objects in the botanical garden's reflecting pool at the HYBYCOZO exhibit. Can't wait to see it in the evening, lit from within, dancing across the water and lily pads.
I'm going to wander around the HYBYCOZO exhibit at the botanical garden for a bit. It's interesting and the garden is always worth a visit. This one is called Balance and it must have taken a fair amount of math to work out. All of the works have lights within them. The garden is open in the evening on weekends and we plan to go back for another look.
Change of scene to another St. Louis institution. The gorgeous Missouri Botanical Garden often has outdoor exhibits of special sculpture or lighted seasonal displays. Through this summer and into next month there has been a show called Patterns In Nature - The Art of HYBYCOZO, https://www.hybycozo.com/. Its website doesn't explain the name. We waited for a cooler day to check it out. This piece at the entrance is called Escher. I can sort of see the step figures but not the up-down-left-right warping of the Dutch artist.
I went back to the next to last day of the orchid show yesterday. It was so crowded on Saturday that we made it about a third of the way through and left. Not so bad on a weekday. It was beautifully clear, which created interesting lighting opportunities in the glass walled and ceilinged gallery.
It is striking that something as complex as an orchid can come from a simple, symmetrical bud, or, in this case, a cascade of them. It makes for nice layers.
Orchids come in an astounding variety of shapes, sizes and colors. I'm no botanist (where I grew up the ground cover was cement and asphalt) but I've never seen anything like this. A sign said it was called something like a spider orchid. I don't think of spiders as curly and pink but what do I know. Looks to me roll-up candy.
Orchids share a basic morphology but come in lots of variations. The range at the Botanical Garden's annual show is bewildering. There is an equally wide variety of ways to photograph them. One approach is a trio with shallow depth of field.
A similarly shaped orchid with a different color scheme. I bumped up the saturation and contrast to see what would happen.
I don't know much about orchids other than that they are epiphytes and sometimes look, um, provocative. This looks like the same variety of flower as in yesterday's post, but with shoots and buds that I assume will become new blossoms.
Time for a change. The annual orchid show is nearing the end of its February run at the Missouri Botanical Garden. We wanted to get there in time but, on a clear winter Saturday, it was so crowded as to be unmanageable. The lumbar facet joints were complaining loudly so we got a third of the way through and decided to come back on a weekday - one of the benefits of being old. Still, got some decent images.
A final photo for 2025, one last from Garden Glow. It has been a tumultuous year in this country and I’m not particularly sanguine about the one to come. It’s some comfort, though, to remember how often predictions are wrong. Maybe, like Annie sang, the sun will come out tomorrow. Or maybe not, but I’ll keep observing.
As mentioned, due to family circumstances I need to finish out the year with some last pictures from Garden Glow. The inventiveness of the projections on Tower Grove House always surprises and delights. Someone asked if it was accompanied by narration. Not that, but there is an ever-changing musical score.
Another Garden Glow favorite that changes year to year. Tower Grove House was the home of the wealthy 19th Century merchant, Henry Shaw. He donated the land that became the Missouri Botanical Garden and adjacent Tower Grove Park. The projections on the building constantly change and evolve, and are different every year. Again, I marvel at the technology.
Over the years, my City Daily Photo colleague Steffe has posted a series of beautiful photos of an ancient tree near where he lives outside of Stockholm. The Missouri Botanical Garden has a magnificent, tall specimen (I’m ashamed that I don’t know the species) that is lit in the same way year after year. It looks ghostly, not in tune with the season’s cheery theme. Again, I can’t imagine the work it took to put all those lights up so precisely.
Groups of illuminated trees at Garden Glow. My first association was that they were being consumed by a magical fire. Then I thought they were being attacked by a swarm of radioactive fireflies.
