STL DPB IN NEW YORK - AFTER THE RAIN

Am I ever home? Well, in a sense, this is home, my place of origin. Starting a five day street photography workshop today and there couldn't be a better place. This is on West 79th Street, just down the block from the hotel where the group is staying. Today we're going to deepest  Brooklyn. First stop Brighton Beach, largely Ukrainian and Russian, and then down to Coney Island. I haven't been there since I was a kid.                

FOREST PARK, COLD DRIZZLE

 

Yesterday was chilly here, about 44 F / 7 C, with misty drizzle all day. Forest Park was nearly empty. The soft colors and shapes were lovely, at least to me.              

1904 LEFTOVER INFRARED

Before I say anything about today's picture, I'll note that our region got between 10 and 12 inches / 25.4 - 30.5 cm of rain yesterday. That blew away the old record set in 1915 and, in fact, was much more than the average rainfall for July and August combined. Some areas had severe damage while others were unharmed. My home and neighborhood had soggy lawns but nothing more.

Anyway, this is another IR in Forest Park on a recent very hot day. We call the building at the upper left the World's Fair Pavilion, a leftover from the 1904 international exposition. (And we had the Olympics that year, too. We used to be somebody.) The slope ends at a multi-terraced fountain, waterfall and pool that kids love.                    

STL DPB ON THE ROAD AND AT HOME - QUARANTINE AND CHINATOWN

I'll be staying with NYC pix for a while 'cause I won't be getting new local stuff. Mild cough and fatigue for the last couple of days, about the same for my wife. What the heck, home Covid test yesterday morning. Positive. PCR tests yesterday also positive for both of us. Got some some new super duper antiviral. Symptoms not too bad (spacier than usual)  but not taking chances since I'm immunosupressed. So, for now, staying home and posting a pic from Chinatown in lower Manhattan on a rainy evening.

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - WET ABSTRACT

Home again but I'll be running photos from the trip for a while, having no local material.

It rained on and off on the day we went to the Whitney Museum of American Art. We stopped for a snack at the cafe on the top floor and watched the wet splatter on the patio just outside.  With a long lens and an articulating LED screen, I could feel good about being indoors.          

AFTER THE RAIN

Wave after wave of storms have passed over us. There is no dust, no smoke. The statues in Citygarden are dripping. All the plants are lush and dampen what little sound is made by the virus-chastened city.

Some people can form a mental visual image - they can see things "in their mind's eye." I'm a little different. I can hear music in my mind's ear. Not a hallucination, just a clear non-physical experience of the music. This is what has been playing all day:

    

THURSDAY ARCH SERIES

Pretty abstract and rather like a graph. It looks like part of a stock market chart.

I need some stimulation. The Saharan dust storm may get here by this weekend, which could make for crazy sunrises and sets.                  

IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE WEATHER...

In St. Louis, as we say, just wait a few hours. Being in the middle of the country, we get caught between warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and cooler, drier air from the Canadian plains, plus anything that wants to whip east out of the Rockies. This was taken a few days ago when it was cool and damp. It became summertime hot soon thereafter.

It looks like a glorious weekend here. The zoo is reopening on a limited basis. You have to get timed tickets online and this week is members-only (we are). Today we are taking Ellie for her first visit there in some time. Pix are sure to follow.     

MAYBE YES, MAYBE NO

After all we have been through in recent weeks and months, all we can say is that we will find out when we get there. Whether our political and social upheaval means anything will not be known until November 4 and maybe not for a long time after that. 

And the virus - people are tired of confinement and rules. The people I've seen at demonstrations here and in the media have thrown distancing to the winds. Most - but only most - people are still wearing masks. I want to scream at those who don't that they are threatening my life. The director general of the World Health Organization said the other day that “the biggest threat now is complacency.”

I had never heard of this company on the western edge of downtown so I looked it up. It's a worldwide marketing agency that specializes in just branding.   

WHERE TO NOW?

An iconic logo that comes from the baseball team, seen in a rainy plaza downtown. STL is our abbreviation for our town. It's the airport code. Here, the bright color seems to be vanishing in the mist. Now where for us? No one knows. In the short term, I worry that the packed crowds from all the demonstrations - social distancing be damned - may lead to a surge in Covid-19 cases. In the medium term, I worry about the would-be dictator and his henchmen.       

COLD WET BLAH

Hard to find something to shoot this weekend. The light looked like what happened to a white car that hasn't been washed in a year. But I had something different to play with, a new tripod. It's the best I've ever had. Got it through a Kickstarter project by a company called Peak Design, known for high end camera bags and the like. They set out to make the best travel tripod ever and I think they succeded. You can look it up if interested.

So I took it to sodden Forest Park, put my beloved Fujifilm X-T3 on it, set the ISO to the lowest native setting, 200, then f11 and let the shutter take as long as it pleased. Really like the crispness and contrast here compared to what I would have gotten handheld, probably at ISO 800-1600 and f8 at most. 

              

RAIN, RAIN GO AWAY

It is very warm and damp here. The orange boat is the Staten Island Ferry. The background in the first picture is Jersey City, New Jersey, not New York.  The third photo is lower Manhattan shrouded in mist.

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.