Wednesday, August 18, 2010

The Accidental Photo

I wondered why the destruction team working on St. Louis Centre had disappeared from the rooftop. They’d made some progress there but for a week or more, they abandoned it.

On the way home one night a while back, I found out why: they’re busily gutting the entire ground level. Not only is the Sixth Street side ripped open (and has been for months), but both the Locust and Washington sides are laid bare. So last night, I got my camera out to see if I could snap a photo of the Washington side, its escalator to nowhere looking so weird and isolated from the street.

Time was on my side; we got stuck at a light. I snapped this photo from the bus window.

“Did you get it?” S. asked, knowing what I was up to. When I shared the view from the camera screen, she pulled off her glasses to see it better. “What kind of camera is that?” she asked, after I showed her its nice little zoom capability. Yes, I love my Canon!

This touched off a several-minute discussion about the camera. As the bus rolled along I-70, I pointed it down toward Hyde Park's Holy Trinity. With the bus moving 55 or better, it was hard to focus, but I managed it enough to show S. As the bus lumbered off the interstate and onto Salisbury, we were stopped by yet another light. And I snapped this shot without really intending to.

“That’s pretty cool,” said S. I had to agree. (Considering it was from a bus window and more than two blocks away.)

When I downloaded it last night and got an even better view, I was pleased to see details that the camera screen had concealed. Like these little beauties. (The grotesques on the spire, which I believe are actually gargoyles.)
I’ve been a fan of this church for as long as I can remember, riding or driving past it much of my life. Yep. One of these days I’m going over there and spend some time shooting it as I’m sure there are even more details I’ve been missing.

Amazing what you can see if you just look … even at things you take for granted.

2 comments:

cd said...

Great pics of the church. Those are gargoyles and it has lots of hidden treasures for you to shoot. Those gargoyles watched us many evenings as we drove an army green, 1969 Ford Galaxy 500.........

NV said...

cd -- EXACTLY! I think that more than anything was why I was SO SURPRISED by what I saw. I've been looking at this building for essentially my entire life ... and yet never really seen it.