Majestic sunset over South St. Louis

I'm a big fan of looking at clouds. While I peddled my bicycle home tonight, from downtown St. Louis to my home in the Shaw Neighborhood, I was repeated stunned by the beauty of the sunset. People oooh and ahhh at fireworks, but I don't believe any fireworks show comes close to what I saw tonight. No need to write any more about it. Instead, I'll simply paste in the gallery below (if you don't see the gallery, it's because you are on the home page--in that case, just click the title of this post and you'll see the gallery). None of these photos have been retouched in any way, other than cropping.

Continue ReadingMajestic sunset over South St. Louis

Things to see

I recently bought a new camera, which tempts me to take more time to see more of the things around me, then try to capture them. Feel free to click on the images for better views. Here's a sampling--first, a tale of two birds: This turkey at the local Farmer's market is deemed to be food, whereas the peacock at the zoo is deemed to be art. Tonight, my family and I walked through Forest Park, where we were treated to a strikingly pink sky (none of these photos in this post have been retouched except for cropping): Refusing to stand idly by, my 12-year old daughter, JuJu, borrowed her mother's iPhone and took some photos, including this yellow flower: [More . . . ]

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What’s up?

I mean, truly, what's up? How about this incredible NASA photo of the Milky Way taken by the Spitzer infrared telescope. We live in quite an amazing neighborhood. Image: NASA But there are other things that are up closer to home. I caught both of these images yesterday. First of all, a sky-full of clouds, as a storm was gathering . . . Image by Erich Vieth . . . which ended up with this rainbow, right over my house. A sign of good luck, assume . . . Image by Erich Vieth

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Taking the time to look at clouds

I'll admit that I've become obsessed with clouds lately. We've had an incredibly intense season of thunderstorms in the Midwest. An hour of sunshine has become simply a chance for nature to take a breather before erupting with yet another thunderstorm. Then again, take a look at the detailed things you can find among the clouds. Not just shapes, but all kinds of animals and people and ghosts. I can't deny it, because I saw them. We are living in a giant kaleidoscope, it seems. I know that I've already foisted cloud photos on you. Perhaps you've had enough of "my" clouds. I was ready to move on too, but then I found these new cloud menageries outside my window as the small jet in which I was flying traveled around a massive storm rather than through it. We were returning from Minneapolis after an intense weekend at the National Conference for Media Reform. After a weekend of intellectual endeavors, it was time for a spiritual experience. This is a different kind of memorable experience than I had on the trip to Minneapolis. A fellow passenger and I were stunned by what we saw outside of the plane. We were 30,000 feet in the air and I started taking these photos through my tiny scratched airplane window.

As I looked, mesmerized, I started seeing all kinds of animals in the clouds, including my deceased dog "Puccini" in the scene below (or is that your deceased dog?). You can click on any of these photos to bring out the details. I can assure you that this will be worth your while, unless you are the unusual kind of person who already takes the time to stare at the clouds. Even if you do like clouds, these were special clouds, even for those of you who like to look at clouds while flying. These photos are not PhotoShopped; this is exactly how these scenes looked to my eyes during my flight.

There were dozens of animals to be seen, and people too.

Continue ReadingTaking the time to look at clouds