Hiya Guys,
This is something I've been wanting to do for a while now...travel around St Louis and take pics of the cool spots at night. Now, let me preface this, I am not the greatest photographer in the world. In fact I'm still trying to figure out what the majority of settings on my Canon 30D do. Years and years ago I used to be pretty fair shooting with available light on my old Canon TX body when we all used film. Sometime soon I plan on enrolling in classes that the local camera shops offer so I can figure this darned thing out. As you'll see, most often I shoot without the aide of a tripod. Its all hand held without a flash, so expect a bit of shake in some of the photos.
All these were shot on my Canon 30D with the stock 28-135mm 1:3-5.6 lens. I've got a new wide angle on the way but it won't be here for another week or so. I did
very little post processing (read=Photoshoping) of the pics. At most I adjusted the brightness and contrast a smidge. I didn't play with the color curves or saturation. They kinda are what they are. That's why I call it Experiments in Available Light.
So here is the first of the series. A little bit about what you are going to see, the St Louis Contemporary Arts Museum and the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts sponsored a number of exhibits in 'light' around what we call Grand Center. Grand Center is one of the Arts hot spots around town. It holds Powell Hall where the St Louis Symphony Orchestra plays. The Fox Theater hosts most of our Broadway plays, the Sheldon Theater and Jazz at the Bistro are two favorite music venues that are in this six (or so) square block area.
A few short weeks ago, Chris (MerRev) and Tracey got married at the Sheldon Theater (cool choice BTW). When several of the GAS guys came out, we saw a couple of the art displays for the Light Project. I didn't have my camera that night so I told myself that I'd grab it and come back one night. It just so happened that last night I was over in Illinois at a Board Meeting where I had taken my camera so I could take a pic of two of a rather large space that I had renovated over this last summer. On the way back into town I called my wife and mentioned to her that I was going to stop and take some pics of the Light Project. Good thing I did it last night as after tonight, the lights all come down, end of the display.
Here is the first pic. Just a simple shot looking up Washington Blvd. The Sheldon is on your right, around the corner in either direction is the Fox, Jazz at the Bistro and Powell Hall. Behind and to your left is the first of the "Light Projects".
This is an untitled work by Jason Peters. It consists of scaffolding that holds up a Habitrail of empty 5 gallon paint buckets with lighting inside. As always, the pictures don't do it justice. In person, this is extremely cool. Here are a few pics.
Wide shot
Close up
an interesting angle
This is my favorite pic of all I took. Getting the right setting on this was brutal (and its still off a bit). The 'Habitrail' is a little hot but the street lighting and building in the background are pretty darned close.
Down around the corner from Jason's untitled work is another art piece titled "Chorus". This one is a creation of Rainer Kehres and Sebastian Hungerer. They took an old church that had been succumbed by fire and replaced the roof with colored lamp shades. Very cool idea. This is where my 'hand shake' can be seen.
Again, getting the settings right because of the light contrast is damned tough. Get the lights nice and sharp and the walls fade to black. Bring the walls up where you can see detail and the lights get really hot and bleached. Oh well, experiments....
and another with slightly different settings.
and the front of the church
and finally, ...
Mister DeMille, I'm ready for my close up...
If you want to read (and see) a bit more about the Light Project, here are a couple of links.
Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts (Joseph Pulitzer after emigrating from Hungary, settled in St Louis)
The Beacon articleI'll be adding some more shots as I get around town.
Oh BTW, for some reason I can't grab the the shooting information. I'll dig around a bit and post it when I get a chance.
