St. Louis Daily Photo

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - WRETCHED EXCESS

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 20:26:45 +0000

I'm not up enough on my art history to define the difference between baroque and rococo but this stuff is pushing the limits of one or the other. It's a style of design that leaves me feeling queasy. This is inside of St. Vitus Cathedral on the sprawling grounds of Prague Castle. The building itself is austere gothic. Not so much the inside.

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - LIVE PROM PRAGUE, IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 15:08:36 +0000

Or is was last night. We went to this cool restaurant just down the street from our hotel called Katr. Apparently nothing to do with the Gulf petrostate. Very dapper head chef. Printed English menu available, fortunately. The strange look of the room is because each table had a place for a grill where you could do your own meat to taste. This is no longer a thing but the look is eye catching.

Vienna on Monday.

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - AND GET YOUR WIG STYLED, TOO

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 14:33:24 +0000

Wandering around Prague in something between drizzle to light rain, a fairly miserable day. We came across this in part of the building where Woofie lived during his time in this city.

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - SOME GUY WHO WROTE WEIRD BOOKS

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 21:27:33 +0000

Out walking around Prague yesterday in the old Jewish Quarter when we happened upon this arresting statue of Franz Kafka. I am at a loss to interpret it (you could probably look it up) but we are wearing ourselves out. Philip Glass wrote an opera on Kafka's book The Trial that we had in STL a few years ago.

First opera of the trip Friday night, Shostakovitch"s Lady Macbeth of Mtensk. OMG, the plot is lurid but I love the music.

STL DPB ON THE ROAD - HOCKEY NIGHT IN CZECHIA

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 18:49:01 +0000

I don't know when these posts are going up in various time zones but I wanted to get something published. We got to Prague Thursday afternoon in the usual state of jet lag. Walked around the corner for dinner on a wet evening. The local cuisine is hearty. Ice hockey is a big deal here and Czech teams do well in international competition.

BTW, Canadians will get the reference in the caption.

A BIG BUNCH OF ARTICA (SEE LINK)

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 05:01:00 +0000

I edited maybe a dozen Artica photos yesterday and I want to get them uploaded before we travel today. Each has something to say for itself but there isn't time to comment on every one. This display was four or five folding tables long, with printouts of single words wrapped around blocks of wood. Visitors were invited to arrange them into any kind of mini-poetry they pleased. This was one of my Artica favorites.

Check the album with many images at https://www.flickr.com/photos/bobcrowe/albums/72177720336009626/ . All the images will be on my Facebook feed Thursday morning my time. Today's a long travel day and I'll try to edit some of the burn of Our Lady of Artica along the way.

AROUND ARTICA

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 05:01:00 +0000

I'd like to survey some of the work at Artica before I get busy with other stuff. Wednesday into Thursday is a long travel day and there will be plenty to shoot at our destination. This structure invited visitors to write out their wishes and feelings and clip them into a structure called a dream catcher. Zoom in if you can.

ARTICA - PRELUDE

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 05:01:00 +0000

It was Artica this weekend, The Lou's wonderful, free-form, outdoor arts event, https://www.articastl.com/ . This was its 25th anniversary and I've made a lot of images here over the years. Sunday concludes with the burning of the effigy of Our Lady of Artica, which we will get to. Finishing touches being applied here.

COLOR FOR COLOR'S SAKE

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 05:01:00 +0000

Rainbows everywhere, but I guess that's part of the point. Probably the last photo from Tower Grove Pride. Artica is this weekend and we hope to go today. Usually get some good pictures and the weather should be good for the bonfire.

DDARE BIONIC

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 05:01:00 +0000

More color and fun at Tower Grove Pride. I know who this person is without looking at the festival website, since we've crossed paths through the St. Lou Fringe, where I'm the photographer and board prez. It's Darrious Varner. who performs as DDare Bionic. Darrious also works in the newsroom at St. Louis Public Radio.

DJ

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 05:01:00 +0000

Not sure who was sponsoring this tent at Tower Grove Pride. There was a sign to the left of the crop inviting people to dance but no one was. No idea how these machines work but it's not my kind of music anyway. Not into the piercings, either.

CITY DAILY PHOTO SEPTEMBER THEME - SOFT

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 05:01:00 +0000

Color, texture, balance, focus. From the Missouri Botanical Garden annual orchid show. See what other City Daily Photo members find squishy or tender at https://citydailyphoto.org/2026/09/22/october-gallery-soft/ .

THE WORKERS OF THE WORLD AREN'T INTERESTED

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 05:01:00 +0000

A booth at Tower Grove Pride that was getting absolutely no traffic. They had enough capital for a nice tent and printed materials. Now, in current terminology, my politics could be described as pretty out on the progressive side and I'm good with the idea that unrestrained capitalism is predatory and destructive, while communism has been an abject failure. Some nations have shown that there is a middle way. Still, I'm happy that this country lets these people be there to have their say.

CHACON A SON GOUT

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 05:01:00 +0000

It is not unusual in this country to see people who are simply covered with tattoos. Mrs. C and I think they are abhorrent and disfiguring. Both of our children got them, one all over, one more discretely (the route of the Chicago Marathon he ran on his calf). Skin belongs to the owner. Each to their own taste. https://youtu.be/WtTnCeuYkgI?si=Rj_RzNRPB9p3tAyN

THE PASSING SCENE

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 05:01:00 +0000

What with my creaky spine, sometimes I'll sit or lean on something at the side of an event, flip up the LED screen on my camera leaving it on my lap, and shoot what goes by. When the camera is not up to my face, people don't know I'm taking pictures. This trio swung over by me and I had quite a conversation with the man on the right. He noticed my Fujifilm camera. He's a FF shooter, too, and we had a chat about why they are so wonderful.

TOWER GROVE PRIDE

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 05:01:00 +0000

Change of scene. Metro St. Louis has a few Pride festivals, and, even though you could compare me to the shortest distance between two points on a plane, you could not find more colorful subject matter. This one is in Tower Grove Park, our second largest. (STL City has a lot of parks.) These folks told me they were family. Mom and the kids?

BALANCE

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 05:01:00 +0000

Last in the series of sculptures in the Patterns In Nature show at the Missouri Botanical Garden. This one is, appropriately, called Balance. The structure on the right is the entry building with the shop, restaurant, meeting rooms and such.

JEWEL

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 05:01:00 +0000

First, a correction. I said that the sculpture in yesterday's post was called Balance. The paper map the Missouri Botanical Garden gave us was not clear. That piece is called Pyrite Field. Pyrite is commonly known as fool's gold. This one, if I got it right from the garden's website, is part of an assembly called Jewel Garden. It had the best light projection onto the pathway.

BALANCE

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 05:01:00 +0000

The name of the sculpture seems appropriate, but it may have to have more to do with structural engineering and metallurgy than a delicate balance of forces. As I edited this picture I thought of the exquisite and often unexpected equilibrium of forces in Alexander Calder's sculpture. This work, it seems to me, stresses the technical over the natural.

PEARLS IN AN OYSTER

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 05:01:00 +0000

That's the association I got when I first started editing this picture, if maybe a science-fictiony version. The geodesic dome, the Climatron, pulsed with solid and patterned colors.

I've got a few more of these to go. Not getting out on the street much, and when I go to an event like this I use a rollator. A new lumbar MRI was, well, a mess. Steroid shots next week as a stop-gap before travel, and then we'll see what the doc recommends. Gotta get more mobile.

ACROSS THE REFLECTING POOL

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 05:01:00 +0000

Metal flower petals in the botanical garden's central reflecting pool. The geodesic dome known as the Climatron is in the background. The installation has the puzzling name As Above, So Below.

VANISHING POINT

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 05:01:00 +0000

I had a picture of this a while ago in the daytime, It's much more interesting at night, with the lights within the cut-out metal tower, the patterns on the pavement and the red light inside the mausoleum of Henry Shaw. He was the rich 19th Century businessman and amateur botanist who founded the Missouri Botanical Garden and adjacent Tower Grove Park.

INSIGHT + POLYHEDRA

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 05:01:00 +0000

That's the name of this installation at the Patterns In Nature show at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Insight perhaps because you can go into the form on the right. (One at a time, please.) Waiting for a turn adds something to the image.

FLOATING IN AIR

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 05:01:00 +0000

This work, which I think is called Point of View, appears to be suspended over a gentle, sphere-like fountain. However, it is inside a gazebo and suspended by a cable from the roof. The photo preserves the illusion.

CONSTELLATION

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Crowe) — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 05:01:00 +0000

I think that's what this one is called. (Correction welcome. It's hard to tell looking back at the map they gave us.) Given the right surface, the projections on the ground are as interesting as the sculpture itself.