City Seeds St. Louis
I went out for a walk one evening, ostensibly to explore the neighborhood and work on some urban decay photography. In Saint Louis, there is certainly enough urban decay to go around. I’m still a new resident, so I wasn’t sure exactly where to go first. My inclination was to head north, where the abandoned warehouses start appearing a few blocks off of the newly gentrified Washington Avenue. However, to be honest, after a few conversations over the weekend about crime, I haven’t worked up the courage to go to far off the beaten path with my equipment by myself. So I headed west along Pine, intending to spend some time taking pictures of the dozens upon dozens of unused parking meters all over the city.
Next to the highway on-ramp, squeezed in next to a hotel in one of the many empty lots in the area I stumbled across City Seeds, a St. Louis non-profit project with the goal of increasing “food security in St. Louis” by providing “mentorship, supervision, and training twice a week.”
It certainly is an interesting project, there in the middle of the urban landscape, and given the number of signs warning people not to steal food, I was a little concerned about being chased off. To be honest tough, there wasn’t a lot of ready to eat food, so either it had already been stolen, legitimately harvested, or the garden wasn’t really producing much. Looked like there were a lot of leeks and potatoes approaching maturity, so maybe all of the earlier veggies had already been picked.
I was able to spend some time photographing the site and it was a really neat experience. I’m all about urban gardens – if I had some grass or a green roof I would certainly have one. Makes a lot of sense both environmentally and economically. Really cool to see that sort of thing locally here in St. Louis. Below are some of the images from my excursion of City Seeds as well as the surrounding area.
Conservatory Water in Central Park
A friend of mine worked on the project to rehabilitate the Conservatory Water in Central Park and has been wanting some photographs for his portfolio, specifically of the marble that is installed around the perimeter of the water. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to shoot the space, but I felt that to make really beautiful photographs of the marble I needed some really beautiful light. I really lucked out this week and was able to shoot the installation on a lovely summer evening in New York and despite the heat I’m really pleased with the photographs.
The project was a challenge because I wanted a sense of elegance in the photographs, rather than a simple documentation of a tourist spot in Central Park. I didn’t want crowds of people around which is tough for summer in Central Park. I found that even when I got wide shots of the whole pond I wasn’t getting the detail and ambiance that I was looking for. There was too many things going on in the photo, and the stonework wasn’t getting it’s fair due.
Then I switched to a long lens, one which I normally use for portraits and snap! I started getting the look I was going for. I was able to get amazing results, using the marble and water as graphic elements. I’m really excited about what I came home with that day. Here are a few samples from the session.
What made this shoot a success was three things: timing, patience, and experimentation. I made sure to shoot at a time when the light looked the way I wanted it to, I took my time waiting for the crowds to clear and to think about my options, and I experimented with wide and long lenses until I was able to capture the sort of images that I wanted to get.
Plus I didn’t drop any gear in the water, which I consider to be a success for any shoot.