Happy Birthday St. Louis Missouri!

This photo was taken on June 6, 2014.

ISO 100 4.3 f/8.0 1/160sec

That year St. Louis was turning 250 years old. 256 cakes like this one were put out all over the city and surrounding area. Some of them are still on display, a current listing is here.  I’ll be honest, when I first heard this was going to be a thing, my reaction was something like…oh. Then I started seeing them around town. They really were works of art. I ended up with quite a little gallery of them. The one above was one of my favorites because of where and how it was placed. The St. Louis Art Museum is free and located in Forest Park. It’s a gem and well worth a visit if you are ever in the area.  Here is my Luminar edited version of the original file:

ISO 100 4.3 f/8.0 1/160sec

The original photo was intended as a realistic snapshot. It was shot in the bright light of a St. Louis afternoon.  The edit has been given a bit of a bronze tone that I thought made the shadows look more interesting. I cropped it because I thought the original had a lot of not very interesting sky. I also removed the working crane.  I did try a crop that would straighten the photo but to my surprise, I thought it made the photo less interesting, so the tilt stayed.

I like this edit, but other than making an appearance here it will pretty much stay in my photo files as a memory of the fun little cakes that dotted St. Louis in 2014.  Do you like this edit? Has your town done something like this? I know there are several US cities that have done similar things. Your comments on the edit and community art projects are welcome below.

Cheers!

Added to Tuesday Photo Challenge, Birthday and in a bit of a cheeky way to One Word Sunday, Fire.

 

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Harmony

It’s worth it, I think, to have public parks, they make it a little easier to feel in harmony with nature. Maintaining a natural setting requires some work.  Setting fire to a prairie seems counterintuitive, but it does actually help keep the land healthy and productive.  This weekend there was a controlled burn at a nearby park, so I went to take some photos:

ISO 160 170mm f/5.6 1/640

It was a sunny morning, so I was able to set my ISO low and still have a high shutter speed.  The image you see above is an HDR image.  I bracketed the photo while I was shooting so that I could create an HDR image later in Photoshop. For this shoot I was using my 70-200mm lens; it allowed me to get great shots but not get in the way.

The images in the gallery below tell more of the story of the burn.  I decided to not edit them at all, keeping them as close to what I saw for the viewer.

ISO 160 200mm f/5.6 1/1250

ISO 160 80mm f/5.6 1/1000

ISO 160 70mm f/5.6 1/2500

ISO 160 135mm f/5.6 1/2500

It was interesting to watch them work.  This particular park of the park is beautiful when it is in bloom.  The burn will help keep it that way.

Don’t you love it when interesting photography shoots just drop in your lap? Have you ever seen this type of work being done?  What do you think of the HDR version?  Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!

Stained Glass in Chicago

I was intrigued when I walked past The First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple and saw a series of stained glass windows at eye level.  This one in particular caught my eye, so I thought I would share it:

ISO 800 50mm 0ev f/3.2 1/320

The story here is that the third building this church had that was at this location burned down in the Chicago Fire of 1871.  The other windows told of other parts of the church’s history.  I think this was the first time I have ever seen a fire like this in stained glass.

This post was written in response to Thursday Lingering Look at Windows.

Cheers!

Travel Theme: Couples

When I first read that “couples”was the travel theme for this week at Where’s my backpack? I was thinking that maybe I would just skip entering this week. Then I went out Friday night and got this shot, a couple of flaming hot women-literally:

ISO 3200 f/2 1/1250 2ev 50mm

These ladies are part of The Fire Technicians-St. Louis who put on a pretty good show set to music.  I got this shot at Third Degree Glass Factory that was hosting its 10th Anniversary party at their monthly open house.  If you happen to be in the area, now you have some place to go and check out.

There were people there who were taking pictures using flash but I didn’t for a few reasons.  The first was I wasn’t convinced that I was close enough for my in camera flash to make a difference.  Second, I was afraid of distracting the performers.  Third, I thought the fire light only would make a cool effect.  I did also some post editing work in Aperture.  I cropped, lightened, and sharpened the image.

Cheers!