A TINTYPE

I needed a bit of filler  before a major photo event later today (the circus is in town). A year ago I learned about a $1 iPhone camera app called TinType. It produces images reminiscent of 19th Century low resolution snaps with striking effect. I go out and shoot with it once in a while. You can just see the Arch in the haze.               

1ST AND O'FALLON

A block or so from the odd sculpture park and power plant seen over the last few days. This is the edge of the rust belt, when the economy has moved on and found no use for what it left behind other than late afternoon colors on old St. Louis brick.                  

THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN

The only time I've ever been to Greece we visited an Orthodox church. If I remember correctly, there was a screen or wall across the area that Catholics call the sanctuary. There were things present and things that happened both in front and behind, a religious metaphor for the spiritual seen and unseen. I thought it was very poetic.

Infrared photography is kind of like that. The shapes, sizes and perspective are what we know in everyday life.  However, the light itself is something we literally can't see but is absolutely there. I don't know how the camera records it as something our eyes can perceive but it's real. Makes me feel a little like an Orthodox priest.                       

LAND GRAB

 

In the late 19th Century, there were a number of events in which the US government opened up previously restricted federal lands to settlers. They were often a first come - first claimed race for homesteads, known as land rushes or land grabs. The largest was in Oklahoma, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_run . No one said the land was, um, empty.

A couple of our stalwart Articans ran their own version during the festival. At a signal, a couple of dozen people ran across a rough field to claim their pieces of turf. A few indigenous residents already happened to be there. They were ignored or bowled over. I tried to photograph the melee inside the homestead zone but there was such chaos that I would have needed a platform or crane to get above the fracas. There was a lesson to be learned here but most people were too busy with their beer.           

We Service Your Petroleum

Some strong graphics from the same area as yesterday's pictures. I particularly like the glass block in the lower left.

Too much week and I'm working today. Must find time to shoot.                        

Sans Égale

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A little digital razzmatazz on a picture of a derelict warehouse. It's not far north of the Arch, where the Laclede's Landing entertainment district yields yields to the old industrial barrens along what's called the North Riverfront. If you were to look at it in person you'd find it's not nearly this bright.

LAST CALL FOR THE STUPID BOWL PARTY: haven't heard from any enlightened spirits about joining our annual outing and boycott. Our attitude toward the event is well-expressed in Joe Nocera's column in yesterday's New York Times. If anyone has a last-minute impulse, meet us about 6:30 at the Turkish restaurant Aya Sophia on Chippewa, just inside the city limits and near Ted Drewes. I don't think we need a reservation.