Thursday Arch Series

Another image from last weekend's HDR splurge. It's a view never seen in nature but it's kind of pretty.  You get a good sense of scale from those itsy bitsy people at the bottom of the monument.        

East Gate

I've been showing HDRs of fall trees in Tower Grove Park. This photo is a variation on the theme. It's the east entrance at at Grand Boulevard. One of those griffins has been seen in these pages before. Mrs. C and I were married in the church on the right, um, some time ago.          

He Used To Be Famous

Alexander von Humboldt in Tower Grove Park. This used to be a big name. There's a Humboldt Park in Chicago near where my son lives. The other two statues on the main axis of Tower Grove are Christopher Columbus and William Shakespeare, but who today has heard of this guy?

Late post. I fell asleep last night with the computer on my lap, this half done.           

Color And Computers

I went out to Tower Grove and Forest Parks yesterday looking for the last bits of fall color. The pickings weren't that great but here and there I found spots of brilliance. It probably has to do with the species of tree but my arborist skills get a failing grade. On the one hand there is nature. On the other hand there is OS X, Photoshop, Photomatix, tripods and shutter burst mode. Technology saved the day. Appearances count for a lot.    

Madeleine Monday

Halloween is a silly season in this country, even for the two month old crowd.

                

Fall Color, At Last

Autumn color varies a lot from year to year in St. Louis. It seems to be a matter of the right amount of rain and temperatures in late summer and early fall. In many years, particularly dry ones, the leaves just turn brown and drop.

I'd say this is a medium year. The show came late but then we're pretty far south, about on the same parallel as Seville, Naples and Istanbul. One of my favorite spots to record this is the lawn and double colonnade of trees running south from the Arch. The trees form a cathedral-like cieling.

Skies were mostly dull yesterday. It's supposed to be sunny today. Maybe I can get one last blast in Forest and Tower Grove Parks.          

Everything's Up To Date In St. Louie

Stretching material here. The reference is actually to a song called Everything's Up To Date In Kansas City, from the 1943 Broadway show Oklahoma!. KC is a darn good town, but why that state to the southwest needs an exclamation mark is beyond me.

Need to get out and shoot. The fall colors are finally interesting here. The up to date business above was found on the North Side near the river.     

The New View

Had to go by the new office yesterday for a meeting about carpeting, where to put certain walls and that sort of exciting stuff. Since I was complaining yesterday about the view I'm losing, I thought I'd take some phone cam snaps of my new one.

It's north of the Arch, in a northeast corner. After on-and-off rain all day, we were rewarded with a gorgeous rainbow to the north. The elevated highway in the foreground is I 70. The domed football stadium is to the left, the new bridge across the Mississippi in the center and the luxury Four Seasons Hotel on the right.

The bottom view will be behind my desk to the east, facing the Mississippi, Eads Bridge and Illinois. The brilliant trees are in the north end of the Arch's park. I don't know what kind they are - Mrs. C, the family horticulturalist could tell you - but they have some kind of disease and will be replaced with a different species.

This post is linked to City Daily Photo's monthly theme day page. For November 1 the topic is heights. To see members' elevated images from around the world click here.