Cruising Around With Nothing To Post

8th and Walnut, early evening, light rain.

Thursday Arch Series

I am so hard up for new material and once again resorting to the through-the-wet-car-window trick. But we're going to Kansas City tomorrow, where there's bound to be something new.       

Market Street, Rain, Red Over Green

One of those through-your-wet-windshield shots. I've got some more AYPO pix I could post but that may be getting old.  Unlike much of the northern hemisphere, it's been cool and wet here for a few days, very unusual for this time of year. It won't last, though.

Looking forward to getting some fresh material. I've been pretty slowed down by some significant low back arthritis. Got a steroid shot a few days ago and what a change. Looking forward to Kansas City and deep Kansas this weekend. 

Thursday Arch Series

Ominous skies. This was taken last Saturday. We expect another inch or two of rain today.

There is a striking series of photographs of some flooded areas on the local newspaper's website here and here.              

Impressionism By Windshield

In the old, run-down industrial area south of the Arch during last weekend's downpour.  I was in my car, water streaming across the windshield. Auto focus was out of the question and manual focus was approximate. If Monet painted modern ruins... Well, he did lots of train stations. Not too different.        

Faces Of Statues In The Rain: Meeting Of The Waters 4

This chap on the top is either the fiercest or weirdest of the characters in Milles Fountain. I can't tell which. By the look of his hair you'd think he is Medusa's son.

Some of the figures are ambiguous. The boy (I presume) below could be scared, gasping for air or has escaped from Middle Earth.

Is this series getting tedious?             

Faces Of Statues In The Rain: Meeting Of The Waters 3

Two days without a post. That's rare for me. New dimensions in overwork (well, not so new) and computer problems. At least the latter issue is solved. We had freezing drizzle most of yesterday so it was time to stay indoors and catch up. 

Another nice piece from the Milles Fountain. The figure looks like she might be squirting shampoo on her hair but it's just a fish. The whole grouping is on river themes. The pipe sticking out of its mouth is a water jet, now off for the winter.  

Faces Of Statues In The Rain: Pinocchio

There are two representations of Pinocchio in Citygarden. This one is part of Tom Otterness' Kindly Geppetto. The wet puppetmaker himself may make it into this series in time. The other one is Jim Dine's Big White Glove, which has been on these pages before.

Even in Otterness' very spare geometry, the little marionette looks like he's sweating bullets. He ought to be, as you can see in this wider view of the statue.                

Faces Of Statues In The Rain: Meeting Of The Waters 2

I don't know the meaning of each of the individual statues that make up The Meeting Of The Waters. This one has always been striking. The hair looks like feathers, parted perfectly to peek through with those intense eyes.              

Faces Of Statues In The Rain: Dizzy Dean

Outside of Busch Stadium are a group of statues of the greatest Cardinal baseball players. Many of the names will be unfamiliar to people from other places. This is Jan Dean (not to be confused with Jan and Dean), known to all as Dizzy Dean, a pitcher during the 30s and 40s. The droplets on his skin could be from a miserable St. Louis summer day.

Before this series is over we'll get to Bob Gibson, the best Cardinal pitcher of all time.          

Faces Of Statues In The Rain: Meeting Of The Waters 1

There is a large group of sculptures across Market Street from Union Station called The Meeting of the Waters. It symbolizes the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers and has been on this blog a number of times (here, for example).

This it the main male figure, representing the Mississippi. He looks like he could use a Kleenex. Lots of the faces in this series will look like that.             

New Series: Faces Of Statues In The Rain

After nearly a decade of this endeavor new ideas are hard to find. And with just a few exceptions, I only get to shoot on weekends. I left home on Sunday morning in a light, steady rain and not a plan in my head. As I got downtown I noticed how the raindrops affected the many bronze statues in the area. And so this series, the faces of statues in the rain.

This first one is Aristede Maillol's La Riviere in Citygarden. The link has a much broader, brighter view. This selection makes me think of the bodies of dead migrants washed up on the shores of Greece or Italy.

Wet Oysters

What to shoot when you have absolutely no idea what to shoot - the rain-spattered covered patio of the Broadway Oyster Bar, home of very loud rock bands, a variety of mollusks and bivalves, and all the Budweiser you can swallow. Taken from the parking lot of the White Castle across the street.

The St. Louis Fringe Festival starts this evening. Your humble photographer will be in attendance, recording it all; or, perhaps better put, all I can stay awake for. Hey, they gave me a press pass! We'll be out late tonight so first pix maybe Saturday morning U.S. Central Time.

Oh, but Saturday is also Madeleine's third birthday. Gotta squeeze that in, too.        

Midwest Weather

No, we're not in Kansas anymore. That was a couple of weeks ago. We're in Missouri, the next one over.

Taken with my phone going southwest on I 44 driving home from downtown. It kinda looks like a tornado but it's not. Just a strange little shower falling out of a cloud with a bit of, um, image enhancement.

I've seen an actual tornado only once. This photo was taken from our old office that was on a higher floor than our current one and had an unobstructed view to the south. This was a verified touchdown, crossing the Mississippi from about the Anheuser-Busch brewery over to Illinois.                

Drip

I'm scraping the bottom of the photo barrel. Yesterday was gray and wet, not promising for the image collector. So after my usual Saturday visit to the office I drove aimlessly around downtown, 50 mm lens on the camera, using a technique I cribbed from Nathalie of Avignon In Photos. Turn off your windshield wipers, find something bright and play with the focus. Works every time.                  

Soaked

There are lots more cake pictures around and we'll get back to that. But it's pouring so I thought I'd post this, shot a few days ago. Gloomy. Look closely at the sign. Do the authorities really want people to explore St. Louis today?

PS: there is an occasion today that calls for a theme song.

PPS: okay, I openly admit that I, um, appropriated the following from a Facebook post by Virginia. However, whether single, married or in a relationship, photographers may find it fall out of your chair funny. I did. And non-photographers probably won't get it at all. 

                                

Gray And Wet

Some of our CDP colleagues have been talking about chilly, damp late winter days. That's all we've had here for a while. Some of us have shown first flowers poking out of the earth. I haven't seen any yet but I have not gone out of my way to find them.

On Sunday afternoon, my camera and I wandered around downtown to see how this would photograph. These shots were taken either through open car windows or running out from a parking space, blasting a few shots and then quickly back in to dry off the camera.

The top pic is Igor Mitoraj's Eros Bendato (Eros Bound) in Citygarden, seen here a few times before. Below, the relatively new federal courthouse rises over the one it replaced, now used by the state courts.  At the bottom, the water-streaked granite panels of the cafe in Citygarden.      

Unoriginal

Sure, it's kind of fuzzy colorful cool but I am, shall we say, borrowing someone else's technique. Our colleague Nathalie of Avignon In Photos does this occasionally (here, for example). I needed something to post and this was just right in front of me when I went to pick up some of the fine pharmaceuticals that keep me going. It's the branch of Walgreens, a national pharmacy chain, in my neighborhood. 

A rare no-post day yesterday. Spaced out at the end of the day Friday and left my laptop with my photos at my office. It was wonderful - I read a book!

CDP has this "navel gazing" theme going this week. I think it's an awful name - wouldn't catch me doing that, sounds unsanitary - but I'll probably join in tomorrow. There will be a photo I took with my first digital camera in February, 2000, and something recent for comparison.   

Rain's Coming

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I mentioned that there is a lot going on around town this weekend. The annual Hispanic Festival was to start yesterday in Kiener Plaza, a block from where I work. The plan was to do some shooting at the end of the day but a violent thunderstorm rolled in. The top view looks southwest toward Market Street. The clouds broke open moments later and I ran back to my office (to the extent that my knees are able to do so).

The Cardinals were to play the Milwaukee Brewers an hour later. The stadium would normally be filling up with fans around that time. The bottom picture was taken from my office with a long lens. Empty, very wet stands.

Alabama, The Only State In The Country Where You Can Drown Standing Up

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The caption was a snip of conversation I heard yesterday morning at the Birmingham edition of The Color Run. It had the ring of truth.

Readers may recall that I shot the first stop on the tour in St. Louis a couple of weeks ago. Well, it was pouring down rain at Barber Motorsports Park outside of B'ham where the run was held. Virginia, Mrs. C and I drove out to see and shoot the spectacle. No rain delays, just go for it.

This was way different than the one back home. No dry, dusty color hanging in the air, just streams of colored mud. What fools these mortals be.