Disappearing Arch

I enjoy the Arch on foggy days, when its great mass plays peek-a-boo with us groundings.

Today is a particularly auspicious day for Arch pictures. The Mildred Lane Kemper Museum houses the art collection of Washington University, as well as special exhibits. A biggie opens tonight: Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future. Saarinen was the visionary architect who designed the Gateway Arch, among other notable works. The exhibition traces Saarinen's career and achievements, with special emphasis on the history, design, engineering and construction of my beloved monument.

There is an opening reception tonight and I'll be there, getting my 15 minuted of fame: the muesum's director of education contacted me awhile back and asked if they could use some of my stuff on the exhibit's web site and printed materials. Why, yes, of course. The educational resources page of the exhibit's web site has links to my Gateway Arch photo blog and my big Flickr set of Arch photos. There's also a link to the American Institute of Achitects' web feature on the Arch; most of the photos in the slide show are mine. Lastly, click the link to the Eero Saarinen Connections guide and, um, scroll down to page 14, making note of the photo credits and the last quotation.

Feels good, doesn't it?

Winter Arch

I've taken a lot of pictures of the Arch like this, maybe because when viewed from this angle it reminds me of the monolith in 2001. I suspect that the Arch has similar powers.

Winter Arch

Howling cold winds on the levee. The Arch takes it without blinking.

Carnival Lights

Once again, no special effects in either camera or computer. Just a 4 second exposure, lots of huge spotlights to ricochet around inside the lens barrel and some variation in color around the scene. That bright green on the near leg of the Arch is from Lumiere Place casino and the Four Seasons Hotel. Carnival itself will come soon enough.

A Bend In The Night

The Arch is floodlit at night. I took this shot with a telephoto from a few hundred meters away, standing on the portico of our Old Courthouse. There will be a picture of that building tomorrow on my St. Louis Daily Photo Blog.

I like the way this photo shows off the plates that form the skin of the Arch and how irregular their surfaces are. From a distance, the Arch looks it could have been cast in one giant piece of metal. Close up, we can see a variegated quilt of stainless steel.

By the way, there is another new Arch photo today on STL DPB.

Night Under The Arch

As I mentioned in today's post on my St. Louis Daily Photo Blog, I went to the riverfront Sunday night to photograph the full moon rising over the Mississippi. Got some cool shots of the Arch, too, which is floodlit in the evening. This isn't an HDR, although you could certainly do that with such a range of light levels (next time). The photo is a 13 second exposure at f 5.6 and ISO 400.

Desaturated

This photo is the desaturated (a/k/a/ black and white) version of today's post on my other blog, St. Louis Daily Photo. It's interesting to compare the two. You don't see a lot of B&W HDRs around but they can be very interesting. Most HRD images are in lurid color. It's hard to choose, but I think I prefer this one to the color version. If I went back to it in Photoshop, I think I'd darken it and/or increase the contrast some.

Which version do you prefer?

Below Red

A company called LifePixel will convert DLSRs to an infrared sensor for a reasonable price. I had them do my old Canon 10D, which was in storage. I'm having a hard time learing to use it but this is an IR picture of the Arch that turned out well.

Something really nice happened yesterday. Washington University in St. Louis has a newish art gallery, the Kemper Museum. A special exhibit opening on January 30 is about Eero Saarinen, the designer of our own Gateway Arch and architect of many other important buildings. One of the curators emailed me, asking if they could use some of the text from the sidebar in this blog in the exhibit's printed materials and link to my blog in the in its web page once the show opens. Uh, yeah, I think that's okay. Everybody loves recognition.

Slash

I must have been using a tripod when I shot this one since it's pretty sharp. The slits are the windows in the observation deck, looking down from about 630 feet / 192 meters. No, they don't open.