Still in Kansas. We had some big thunderstorms roll through here last night. It's the Midwest, so normal, but there was a big temperature drop. Maybe that will let me get back out on the streets.
So another infrared shot on my brother and sister in law's farm. There is a simple but not obvious technique to get this kind of color manipulation. Let me know if you want to know how it's done. The corn looks like it has been touched by King Midas. That wouldn't taste good to us or livestock.
One of our City Daily Photo colleagues commented yesterday that it seems mandatory for cities to have a Ferris wheel these days, and it's nice to have one here. It is built on the side of Union Station, now a hotel and entertainment complex. There is an aquarium, a mirror maze, mini golf and more. Expensive but fun. But two things to note about this scene:
Something in this image is totally fake and it would take a Photoshop nerd to spot it. The newest version of the program has a tool called Replace Sky. It precisely finds the edges of everything in front of the sky and drops in a new background of your choice. These clouds weren't there. The actual sky was empty (see yesterday's post).
The tall building just right of center is vacant and has no immediate prospect of reuse. After the breakup of the old AT&T into the regional "Baby Bells," STL was the home of Southwestern Bell. It bought up some of the other regional carriers and then acquired the rights to the AT&T name. This building was, for a time, AT&T's world headquarters. Then they decided that St. Louis was Podunk and moved the operation to Dallas. I read that it is hard to repurpose a large building built for a single tenant so it just sits there.
Yesterday and today's posts are stupid Photoshop tricks, fooling around with color and light. Is it trashy or arty? Your pick. In one version of this image I cut-n-pasted a couple of flying saucers* into the sky but then decided that was over the top. I think it ended up kinda cool, you know, sci-fi super-glow St. Louis. Boys just want to have fun.
There was an interesting and diverse crowd on the ice at Steinberg Rink last weekend. The young woman in the top picture proclaims that she still believes in Santa. And why not? He was right there, skating with everybody else. Maybe she shouldn't be so confident, for reasons we shall discuss in tomorrow's post. 
