Bit Off More Than I Can Chew

The Fringe season is on full boil. I shot one production Thursday night (albeit a long one) and three last night, all terrific. And I've taken, um, something over 3,000 shots so far. Now my excess is repaid with an editing overload. The first show was called the The Gringo. According to the festival program:

*Local Headline Act* "The Gringo" is a contemporary musical that looks at culture and privilege to ask the essential question: Is home a place you find or a place you fight for? On the same day local favorite street artist El Fantasma is gunned downed by police, a new notably talented, and notably white, artist named Ishamel arrives on the scene. Composer, music director, and arts educator Colin Healy presents his new full-length musical "The Gringo" during the festival’s opening weekend.

 This is just a sample.  SO much more to come.

           

The Fringe Is Here!

The St. Lou Fringe's opening party took place last night. (See schedule and buy tickets here.) Impresario Matthew Kerns introduced the season and interviewed the principals of some of the major shows. Local star Desire' Declyne will lead the late night show, As We Stumble Along. The evening's main entertainment was the hip hop duo Same Difference. The crowd had a good time.

The main performances start tonight. There are five venues around the Grand Centre Arts District. Each is named for a person or sponsor that made a significant contribution to the festival. They named the Kranzberg Studio Theater for - sniff - me. I was knocked out, humbled and elated. I guess they like my work.

Henry Shaw Would Boggle, Or, Not The Rouen Cathedral

Locals sometimes refer to the Missouri Botanical Garden as Shaw's Garden, after its founder, Henry Shaw. He also donated the land that became Tower Grove Park. The building in these pictures is his home in the middle of what is now the garden.

Shaw could never have conceived of what we saw at his home Saturday night. The Flora Borealis show included spectacular video and laser projections on his house, ever changing and quite unreal. I have no idea how it was done. It made me think of a 21st Century version of Claude Monet's series of paintings of the Rouen (a word that is very hard for English speakers to pronounce correctly) Cathedral. The same building over and over, with each image at a different time of day or weather. Monet used his eyes and a brush. Today we use algorithms.  

The St. Louis Fringe Festival starts tonight. Be there or be square.    

Flora Borealis

There has been a sound/light/laser show going on at the botanical garden all summer. We finally got around to visiting. The name, Flora Borealis, is a bit of a bad pun. There was voiceover throughout, mostly on the theme of be nice to plants, but hardly anyone was paying attention. Everyone was ooh-ing and ah-ing over the spectacular laser effects. It was going on even inside the Climatron. I have no idea how it's done, more about which tomorrow.       

Street Racing

The bicycle races moved to the streets on Sunday in The Grove neighborhood. Much easier to shoot - wide open spaces, no in-and-out shadows and I could get closer to the riders. I got tons of pictures. This is just a sample. I also have material from a sound and light laser show at the botanical garden over the weekend and the St. Louis Fringe Festival starts Wednesday night. And I still have to work. No risk of boredom.        

Velocity

There are some big time (by our standards) bicycle races in Tower Grove this weekend. I've shot this event before when it was run on city streets. Much harder to do in the park with limited areas of open sun and lots of mottling by tree shade. No good for auto exposure and focus.

I took too many photos yesterday, cleanly into four figures. A lot of that was shooting in burst mode as the pack went by. But there was another event yesterday evening that ran up the score. We'll get to all of it.      

Milestone

Ellie started kindergarten this week, with a tweak of the rules. She is very ready. Unfortunately, the local school districts strictly require that a child be five by August 1 to enter. Her birthday is August 20. However, some of the charter schools in the city proper  (Americans know what I mean) can do what they want with the age rules. So, the kid has started at one of them and will be eligible for first grade anywhere next year. Not too heavy on experimental technique yet but it's a good start.