Most U.S. cities have a so-called alternative newspaper, a free weekly with some investigative reporting, articles of interest you won't find in the regular paper and lots of stuff about entertainment and nightlife. Ours is The Riverfront Times. It's been around for years and years and it's a good read.
A couple of weeks ago I got an email from someone at the paper saying that I was a finalist in a category of their first annual web awards. What? Was this a scam? Never heard a thing about it. It was for real, though, and I was a finalist in the category of best Flickr stream. What? Out of the thousands of St. Louisans' Flickr streams? Not for my blog. They didn't know about the blog and, besides, there was no category for best local photo blog. (!) There were categories for things like best sex blog and best tweet. How could any tweet be best?
Anyway, they invited me to their awards party and said I could shoot pictures. It was at a nightclub on the edge of downtown, someplace I would never go on my own. It was a cavernous space with black floors, walls and ceiling. On the left was a stage where a DJ was working. On the right, a sound engineer's station. In the back, a gloomy bar and lounge area. People milled around, talking to their friends and drinking. Eventually some guy got up on the stage, thanked everyone for coming and said he wasn't going to bore us with the names of all the nominees and winners so we should just look at their web site in the morning. Then back to milling around and drinking. I was there alone. I may well have been the oldest person in the place. Took a few more (photographic) shots and left.
A couple of weeks ago I got an email from someone at the paper saying that I was a finalist in a category of their first annual web awards. What? Was this a scam? Never heard a thing about it. It was for real, though, and I was a finalist in the category of best Flickr stream. What? Out of the thousands of St. Louisans' Flickr streams? Not for my blog. They didn't know about the blog and, besides, there was no category for best local photo blog. (!) There were categories for things like best sex blog and best tweet. How could any tweet be best?
Anyway, they invited me to their awards party and said I could shoot pictures. It was at a nightclub on the edge of downtown, someplace I would never go on my own. It was a cavernous space with black floors, walls and ceiling. On the left was a stage where a DJ was working. On the right, a sound engineer's station. In the back, a gloomy bar and lounge area. People milled around, talking to their friends and drinking. Eventually some guy got up on the stage, thanked everyone for coming and said he wasn't going to bore us with the names of all the nominees and winners so we should just look at their web site in the morning. Then back to milling around and drinking. I was there alone. I may well have been the oldest person in the place. Took a few more (photographic) shots and left.
Still, it was an interesting experience. Above, two guests who enjoyed dressing like kids and wearing weird makeup. Below, the trophies, made from old computer circuit boards; the bar (Lurch...want...daiquiri...) and an overview of the crowd. They damn well better have a photo blog category next year.
We think about Roman architecture and crossing the Mississippi today on Downtown St. Louis 365.
Again, apologies for the lack of comments. The work days have been long. I come home, eat dinner, prepare the next morning's posts and go to bed. It will change. It better.
