A New St. Louis Photoblogger

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Downtown St. Louis is a quiet place on a Sunday afternoon unless there is a big sporting event or convention. After my time at the office Sunday (sigh) I went to shoot the House of Hades tile seen yesterday. Surprisingly, there was another photographer snapping around and talking to passers-by.

Jarred Gastreich and I started chatting. He lives in the city proper and has started a new St. Louis daily photoblog, www.tistl.com. I've encouraged him to join City Daily Photo. It's also worth looking at his street photography blog, www.itisalrightma.com (great name) and his web site, www.jgexposures.com. Jarred has no anxiety about engaging strangers. His style is often softer and more intimate than mine. Note that Canon 7D on his right hip and a real, genuine Leica rangefinder film camera on the left.

I don't know about his background and interests but we'll meet again soon. He's one to watch.

And, on another note:

What To Do On Blog Holiday

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I hadn't taken a picture for two days until last night. It felt liberating. All this time has opened up for other things. It made me realize that while the blog has been good for my photography, it's been bad for me personally. My work week has been long. Most of my free time was going to shooting, editing, posting and commenting. Normal household chores got pushed aside because of the demands of the blog. Still haven't finished sorting and editing the Nepal and Tibet pictures two months on. I'll probably get back to the daily blog in a bit. Now, if it weren't for this &$@!* job...

One of the things to do is study photography. I'm taking an online course in off-camera flash techniques from the Perfect Picture School of Photography. The name is a bit pretentious but I've done a couple of other classes with them and the quality is very high. So, this week's lesson and assignment concerns bounce flash techniques. This photo is not about St. Louis but it's in St. Louis, viz., my basement. I was shooting alstromeria and decided to break some rules. This is bounce backlighting, straight off the wall behind the flowers, taken with an 85 mm prime lens at f 1.8, 1/60 sec., ISO 100. Something different.

Be back soon.