Here are a couple more pictures I liked from my walk across the river the other day. (As always, click on the thumbnail for a larger view.) First, as you see above, a panorama of the St. Louis Skyline from across the river. The overlook at Malcolm W. Martin Park is a little back from the river, so you get all of that industrial-ugly stuff in the foreground, but it’s still a great view.
I love doing panoramas. They’re ridiculously easy in Photoshop, as long as you take the initial shots properly. (The main key: set the camera to manual exposure, so all of the pictures are shot using the same settings. Also, allow plenty of overlap between the individual shots.) This one was composed from five initial pictures.
Someday I’ll post a few other panoramas from the last few years.
Our second shot today is from my walk back across the Eads Bridge to St. Louis. The Mississippi River is falling; a week or so ago it was up above flood stage, meaning that the river was lapping onto Leonore K. Sullivan Blvd. (Wharf Street, for you real old-timers). By Tuesday, when these pictures were taken, it had fallen nine or 10 feet (and in the four days since then, it has fallen another four feet). When the river falls, it leaves behind a lot, and I mean a lot, of mud. These guys have the unfortunate task of cleaning it up, and sending that mud back into the river. You can see in the foreground what lies in their future. It’s definitely worthy of “Dirty Jobs,” and unfortunately for these workers, St. Louis has a long, long stretch of cobblestones to clean.
