90/365: Photo Stalking

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One calendar quarter down, three to go on this year-long project.

I took on a challenge in limiting the subject of this blog to downtown St. Louis. This is not the city center of Chicago or Atlanta. I prowl the less-than-bustling streets on weekends in my faithful Honda, looking for something that gets my eye. This view, looking east on Locust from 18th Street on a Sunday, is dead empty. Apocalypse now?

The Thursday Arch Series is up today on St. Louis Daily Photo.

89/365: Upload

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This is an AT&T data processing center close to my office. They have had Chestnut Street closed for a few weeks, filled up with a big crane. (Most of it is below the bottom edge of the picture.) I haven't been able to figure out whet they are doing.

The outer roof of a cafe in Citygarden is in the upper right, just for some extra geometry.

Today St. Louis Daily Photo is talking about climate change, sort of.

88/365: Spring Snow

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The snow had just begun to fall Saturday afternoon when I shot this picture downtown. You know how sometimes a song gets into your head and won't leave? (Mine has been occupied by random bits of Die Walküre, which I've been listening to in the car while commuting. Hojotoho!) But looking at these pictures keeps bringing me back to Yukio Mishima's exquisite novel, Spring Snow. Worth checking him out if you don't know him, as well as the bio-pic Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters, with score by Philip Glass.

The scene today on St. Louis Daily Photo today also has Japanese overtones.

87/365: The Effect Of Sugar On Art

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Sure, our old pal Eros shows up on my blogs a lot but I kinda like this one. It was shot during Saturday's snowstorm. The face has powerful features but it is less potent for having powdered sugar sprinkled all over it. It doesn't have a sweet cream filling but that would sure be nice.

The American Society For Prevention Of Cruelty To Flowers has its say today on St. Louis Daily Photo.

86/365: A White Whacking

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We're a week into spring but this was what was going down in Citygarden yesterday afternoon. Does a white cloak make Geppetto's violence toward Pinocchio less obscene?

The same thing was going on the the Botanical Garden yesterday, as seen on St. Louis Daily Photo today.

85/365: Goodwill

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MERS Goodwill is the major not-for-profit rehabilitation agency in our area. It started out in 1940 as Jewish Employment and Rehabilitation Services. The name was later changed to Metropolitan Employment and Rehabilitation Services (MERS) to reflect their service to the entire community. It eventually merged with Goodwill Industries, a similar organization. This is their old main building at 18th and Locust.

These people do some serious good. They work with those who have physical or mental impairments of their ability to work, testing and evaluating them, providing training and education, leading to job placement services. They put people to work who would otherwise be dependent on family or the state. Two thumbs up.

St. Louis Daily Photo is overexposed today.

84/365: Lifeline Factory

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This building is a half block east and across the street from the one featured on St. Louis Daily Photo today. Like many of the buildings on this strip, it's an old light industrial building converted to loft apartments. Sometimes the original use of the building is obvious, like the Bee Hat Factory Lofts but what does this mean?

I immediately think of the TV show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire or the movie Slumdog Millionaire but the possibilities are so broad. If you are afraid of our most likely natural disasters, earthquake or tornado, this might be a comforting place to live. The nearest nuclear power plant is 100 miles away (although upwind) so St. Louisans don't need a lifeline for that.

So here's that other building I was talking about on St. Louis Daily Photo today.

83/365: Wascally Wabbit

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I can't look at a picture of a rabbit without thinking of Bugs Bunny tormenting poor Elmer Fudd. (The clip in the link has Elmer studying photography.) Bugs was frenetic. Not So with Tom Claassen's Two Rabbits in Citygarden (the companion is just outside of the frame). It looks so simple, but I think this is a complex work. At first, the rodent seems stolid and sedentary. When I consider it more, it makes me think of a sumo wrestler about to explode with force. The stance could be that of a guardian, big and strong enough to crush you. But then again, it's just a bunny. It's this kind of stuff than makes contemporary art interesting.

Thursday Arch Series today on St. Louis Daily Photo.

82/365: Batter's Eye

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Same picture of Cardinals' outfielder Matt Holliday as yesterday, different point of view. This is looking through the eye/headhole/whatever of Kieth Haring's Untitled (Ringed Figure) in Citygarden. May Holliday's focus be sharp and concentration be strong when he faces Tim Linsecum and Roy Halladay this year.

St. Louis Daily Photo defies gravity today.

81/365: Justice For Baseball Players

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A banner with Cardinals' slugger Matt Holliday hangs over Market Street downtown. The name on the bottom is the cable channel that carries most of the team's games. You will find such banners on lamp posts all over American cities. They are paid advertising. Heaven knows the City of St. Louis needs the money.

Having the Civil Courts Building in the background gets me wondering if Holliday needs justice. He is a pretty good player. His pay is $17 million a year. He is the highest paid player in team history but Albert Pujols, whose contract is up at the end of this season, thinks it is a trivial sum (as recently discussed on this blog here). What about justice for fans? Mere mortals can't afford to go to games anymore.

Today is St. Louis Daily Photo's fourth anniversary. Join the celebration!

80/365: Washington and Jefferson

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No history lesson, just an intersection of two main streets near the northwest corner of downtown. Technically, this is on the wrong side of Jefferson to fit my official definition of downtown but what the hell, I am the lord of this little blog-world. The upper floors are loft apartments. The ground level is (long) vacant commercial space. That's life in 21st Century St. Louis - we hold these truths to be self-evident.

It's spring, and St. Louis Daily Photo is in love today.

79/365: Visitors From Kansas City

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I was wandering around under the Arch yesterday morning, looking for material. There was a large tree, stripped by the river, washed up on the top of the levee (the river is a lot higher than the last time I was by) that was fascinating to kids. The members of this family were taking one another's pictures with cell phone cams. When they saw me walk by, loaded with gear, they asked if I would take a picture of all of them (this happens a lot). Sure, of course, and can I take a picture of you guys with my camera?

It's spring break time for many American schools and these folks came over from Kansas City to see the sights. Hope they have a good time.

St. Louis Daily Photo is not thinking about lawnmowers.

78/365: High-Definition Color

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It seems that at every major public event, the city fire department brings out this enormous flag, suspended from the ends of the tall cranes on its biggest trucks. Regardless of the symbolism, it makes a terrific display against a blue sky. I'm not making a political statement here. I just really like the graphics.

St. Louis City Hall is at the bottom. It has plenty of architectural interest. I really need to explore it with my camera.

St. Louis Daily Photo is running from the sheriff today.

77/365: Erin Go Whoopee

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Near the end of the St. Patrick's Day parade route, a couple of blocks from my office. I don't ride these things. Sure, power, freedom, wind in your hair (in the few states that do not require a helmet, notably Illinois and California) but, well, it's just bloody crazy.

Question: what's another term for motorcycle rider?

Answer: organ donor.

I guess I'll never understand. But then my life insurance premiums are cheaper.

St. Louis Daily Photo evades arrest today.

76/365: A Wee Dram For St. Patrick's Day

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An advertising sign along the St. Pat's parade route. Celebrate right with a 40% alcohol beverage. Actually, I prefer Bushmill's 18 year old but that's from Northern Ireland. It probably wouldn't go down so well in the Republic. Most Americans wouldn't know the difference.

Today's post on St. Louis Daily Photo tries to pull something green into the Arch.

75/365: Muscle

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Another pic from the Working Families Rally. Not that there's anything wrong with these but I do need to get out and shoot some fresh stuff this weekend. It's supposed to be very pleasant. Spring is coming earlier than it used to. We have forsythia and daffodils out in the middle of March.

Anyway, the operating engineers are the people who run heavy construction equipment, bulldozers, cranes, that kind of stuff. Some of them look like they actually make their living on the professional wrestling circuit. I decline to arm wrestle.

Today St. Louis Daily Photo considers an assortment of people who are just plain strange.

74/365: E Pluribus Unun

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That's what it says on the American dollar bill: one from many. There were all kinds of people at the Working Families Rally, even a suit. (Where'd he come from? Spy?) One of this country's founders, Benjamin Franklin, said that we must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. That's a good explanation of the need for unions. Many of the signs said Good Jobs Now but the workers can only do so much about that. I've been to China and seen why.

Today's St. Louis Daily Photo explores the religious roots of St. Patrick's Day.

73/365: Solidarity Forever

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It's an issue of basic fairness to me: management has power. The bigger it is the more is has. An individual worker is a speck of dust. Powerful employers can and do exploit employees. (I won't start in on the history of that.) Therefore, many workers need to organize for their collective good: unions. Q.E.D.

Not that powerful unions can't abuse their strength. My near-namesake, Bob Crow, leader of the London transport workers union, has stuck it to the public of that city time and again. Contract work rules can stymie efficiency and keep deadwood personnel on the job. Balance is needed. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

For now, though, solidarity forever.

St. Louis Daily Photo issues a Celtic accusation today.

72/365: Stop The War On Workers

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Patriotism is not the exclusive province of the Tea Party. I look at these faces and then think back to those I saw when I covered the Tea Party rally here last summer. What I don't get is the plutocrats' end-game. If they grab the bulk of the money for themselves, draining it away from everybody else, then people won't have money to buy stuff, the consumer economy collapses and the plutocrats go broke. Such irony. R. Crumb explained it well.

St. Louis Daily Photo celebrates the start of spring public drinking season today.

71/365: Greed Overpowering People

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Both of my blogs have a rare foray into politics today. This is a scene from the working families rally held in Kiener Plaza yesterday afternoon. I'm with these ladies but I wish they could find a way around the GOP acronym. It stands for Grand Old Party. Their definition of grand must be different from mine.

Coverage of the rally will continue for a few days on this blog. St. Louis Daily Photo will switch to the St. Patrick's parade and related events tomorrow but it has this image from the rally today:

70/365: An Old Favorite Subject

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I'm complaining about having nothing to post, or people who complain they have nothing to post (I'm not sure which), on St. Louis Daily Photo today. I had nothing to post for DT STL 365 today so I had to go hustle this shot of the Old Courthouse. I may go on complaining anyway. It can be cathartic.

St. Louis Daily Photo was so hard up for material today I drove through a car wash with my camera.

69/365: 1st Month Rent

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A lot of my clients would like to find this, but preferably not under a viaduct and behind barbed wire.

68/365: An Arch Photo

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This was taken from about 16th and Chouteau. The monument is almost hemmed in by office buildings, a hotel, the light towers of Busch Stadium and high voltage lines. Still, it easily manages to rise above it all.

We're talking about the highbrow Disneyland today on St. Louis Daily Photo.

67/365: On The Run

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Well, here I am sitting in a conference room in Los Angeles, listening to both my colleagues and the planes zooming in and out of LAX just down the street. I'm going to grow roots into this chair. Maybe I should have gone running with teams from the Idiotarod.

66/365: Black Swans

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Yeah, yeah, more Idiotarod pictures but I have to keep squeezing this until I get home. Next Saturday is the St. Patrick's day parade, a photographer's feast. This is the Black Swan entry in the contest. I don't get all the referenceds- I didn't see the movie. (I see hardly any movies.) Still, those smiles look malevolent to me.

Scenes from the Getty Center in LA on St. Louis Daily Photo today.