Castlewood State Park

Well this is a decent looking panorama shot looking over the Meramac River from the bluffs at Castlewood State Park. My subdivision in Valley Park backs up to these same bluffs further down river. It is the beautiful natural view from here that made this area a resort town for the wealty people of st. louis in the 1900's. In those days over 10,000 people migrated here on the weekends to get away from the dirty city. The only reason that this area has not been developes is that it is protected by several public and privately owned parks that work to preserve this little natural area. This picture was taken on a cold december day with complete cloud cover. What I wish to do in the future is come back here during the spring or early summer and get a great picture of the area with blue sky and leaves on the trees. 

Analytique

Hey, I just wanted to start off the year showing you guys the Analytique that I did last year in studio. An Analytique is a type of Design analysis/art piece that was originally done by architecture students a hundred years ago in France and America. It is made to be something that shows or sums up all the main points of a design in one drawing. Well I did mine on the Landscape Architect/ Artist Burle Marx and the subject was on one of the private residence gardens that he did late in his career. Well as you can tell this is a drawing that I did in stead of a photograph like the other posts. But this image is a photo of the finished work. I couldn't scan the final work since it is in a glass frame and the scanner we use is not a flat bed. To get this image to look like this I had to take one of my pictures that I had of this (which was not a straight on picture) and take it into Photoshop to fix the perspective so that it looked like a flat image. I though it was a nice bit of work that turned out alright so now I will leave you with the finished product. 

THe First Flower

This picture was taken a few years back in Japan in Fukuoka. I really liked the setting of this picture but it was too washed out by the sun so I decided to play around wit hthe colors a little and came up with what you see here. I'm sure that if I would have done something like this in photoshop that I would have done it a little bit better but I was quite busy with work when I made this photo. Well Thats all for today so enjoy. 

It's Christmas Time

Hey everyone, it's Christmas time now so I will give you a nice picture I took 2 years ago back in St. Louis. This is a nice house that I saw while driving back from the O'Fallon area and pulled the car over to take the picture. I had to use their mailbox I think to hold the camera steady since I had no tripod handy at the time. The setup of this house and the lake infront really makes a nice entrance scene for the subdivision thats called "The Lakes." Well thats all I have time for now since I am really busy finishing up other projects. Have a great December everyone! 

The Next Day

Hey this isn't the most beautiful of pictures but I just wanted to show you how fast the weather can change around here. This was taken just one day after the picture below in about the same spot. I thought this picture just looked cool when it is next to the one below.
Well have a fun winter because it is offically here with the first real snow of the year! 

The Eye of the Storm

I couldn't pass up taking this picture yesterday looking out from my studio. It had stormed off and on throughout the day with several tornado watches and warning going on and off. The tornado siren around us even went off several times after this was taken. And as a tribute to Kansas weather, it snowed the next day. In this picture I just loved how the sun lit up the wet Campus landscape, making it seem more like early spring after the snows melted then late fall.
Well Enjoy! 

Hale Library at Night

I will give you guys a nice picture of Hale Library at night just before I leave for thanksgiving break. I took this one about a week ago on my trip around campus. It is a photomerge of at least 3 pictures that I put together on photoshop. Unfortunatly, because of the long length of this picture, you guys can't see the picture as well as I would have liked but at least you get the idea. Well have fun and enjoy! 

The Thorny tree

Today I go for a simplistic approach in the composition. This is a honeylocust tree at Marlatt Park that I thought looked cool against the blue sky backdrop. I called it the thorny tree because the thorns on these trees can easily get several inches long! This picture doesn't really show you the thorns but trust me, they are dangerous looking. Well I must get back to work so I will now leave you to stare endlessly into the complex branch structure of the tree................. 

The three Cottonwoods

Back at Marlatt Park I bring you a picture that I took while walking and through random luck it came out with a really interesting composition. I like how the center tree is straight up and down but the horizion line is really tilted. It kind of make you want to tilt your head to see it correctly. The picture I am showing you is completely unedited and uncropped so this is how it cam from the camera raw. 

Lilly in the Rain

We go back to Japan for todays picture. This picture was taken in the city of Kitakyushu in the moat between the Castle and the riverwalk. As you can see, it was sprinkling that day but it wasen't very hard so the riples in the water were still distinct in their shape. I tried to crop/balance this picture so that the lilly pads didn't cover up all the open space outside of the flower's area. I think my final composition works out well with the three spots of open water balancing each other out. Well thats it for today so enjoy!