52 Week Project: Week 45

This week was an extremely busy one at work. We're celebrating our 25th anniversary this year - and our usual fall appreciation event was a little larger and complex this time. I had a chance to spend a little time with Tommy during the week but I don't want to oversaturate this project with Tommy, as cute and important to me as he is.

I took this photo in the "nick of time" on my iPhone - I think a first for this photo project. I gave myself the freedom to take with any camera device I had - but I always enjoyed using my DSLR for the project.

This is one of the flower arrangements from said event - hot pink against linens of navy and silver - stunningly beautiful.



I took more photos of our beautiful pup, Tom, but have already striven to take photos other than him this week. He's doing better but the days are still numbered... :-/

52 Week Project: Week 44

I won't sugarcoat this - this is a tough week and a tough choice for the project. Tommy is our wonderful, spectacular, stellar Cairn Terrier who turned twelve in May. For 10 of those years, he was one half of a therapy dog team who changed the lives of countless people and kids in the St. Louis area.

On Halloween night, he fell off my parents bed, which lead them to our great vet and then the emergency vet and a diagnosis that none of us wanted. Tommy's fall was the result of an inoperable brain tumor - definitely not the news we were hoping for. We are unwilling torture him with radiation (the treatment which might extend his life but won't cure him) and have decided to go the palliative route - just making him comfortable and happy as can be.

His tumor affects his balance and motor coordination (vs his personality) and the most marked change is that his balance is occasionally precarious. He can't always control his back legs and you can see him kind of getting annoyed at times with how his body is not exactly cooperating. It is hard to watch him lurch and stumble around the house instead of bounding around (yes, even at 12 - he was quite the spry pup).

We all share a bond with Tommy unlike any of our other dogs - and though we knew that he wasn't immortal, none of us wanted to face his mortality anytime soon. It would always be too soon.

It is too soon.

We don't know how long it will be before his quality of life declines - it could be soon, it could be awhile. But until that day comes, we are going to love him and make him comfortable and happy.

This is a picture of him on my dad's lap yesterday.



Until it's time, we're going to treasure every single day we have left with him.

52 Week Project: Week 43

This week's photo is brought to you by Shaw Nature Reserve. It is connected to our absolutely already amazing Missouri Botanical Garden. My parents and I wandered around the Wildflower garden, which was mostly out of bloom but amazing still.

We mostly went for fall foliage:



Almost made it:



Gross but cool.

52 Week Project: Week 42

On my staycation vacation, my parents and I made a day trip with the pups to Springfield, IL. Mom's been wanting to go to the Lincoln Museum and Friday was the day. The museum is really stunning in some of its layouts and composition and it's always refreshing to review history learned as a child as an adult.

Since photographs aren't allowed in the museum - I took this picture at his tomb in nearby Oak Ridge Cemetery. It was nice to pay my respects to such a historical figure. And did you know that Tom Hanks is related to President Lincoln? You learn new things every day....



Also almost made it into the project, Governor Tanner's grave against fall foliage:

52 Week Project: Week 41

Fall is here, and even though I'm on Day 13 of 15 in a row... I made some time this morning to walk around the Missouri Botanical Garden to see how fall is blooming there.

I encountered much gorgeousness and it made my heart happy and my feet tired. Hard to choose, but this picture won out because it was what I went to the garden for; autumn in the Japanese Garden.



A close second was this one:



I can't believe I have 11 more weeks, 11 more photos. Time to start working on ideas for the next project. Anyone have any ideas?

52 Week Project: Week 40

Whoa... 3 months left in the year? My how time flies.

It has been a work-consumed week so all of my pictures this week were taken one morning. I took several gems and it was a hard time deciding. Ultimately, this door won out. I've only been promising myself I'd take a picture of this eye catching door on a now defunct building for ages now.



Here are the runners up:

     

USS Inaugural

There is a shipwreck on the Mississippi River... kind of. The USS Inaugural was a minesweeper (Admirable class) that was used in World War II. It was decommissioned in 1946 and came to St Louis as a floating museum on the riverfront in 1968. In 2003, during the Great Flood - it came loose of its moorings, crashed into the Poplar Street Bridge, took on water, and came to its final resting place about 1/2 mile downstream of the MacArthur Bridge.

How did I find out about this? I randomly came across it in on the on-line edition of the Post-Dispatch, our newspaper. What prompted the photographer to take the picture, I have no idea. But I'm glad she did. I took time for myself out of my crazy work weekend and went a-searching. And I was well-rewarded.

It's pretty hard to find, and I was a little nervous being by myself on the industrial riverfront, so these pictures were taken pretty hastily. In this picture, the ship looks tiny. If you look carefully on the righthand side, you can see a little blue person. That person is sitting down, but you can still get an idea of the size of the ship. According to the Wikipedia article, the ship is 184 ft in length - so I'm thinking, even with the river levels so low (really the only time she is revealed), most of the ship is still submerged in the silty riverbank.

While doing a search online about the USS Inaugural, I found many interesting things including a debate on who owns the ship and how exactly it came to rest downstream from its original moorings. And, apparently, according some individuals, there has been theft from the abandoned ship. Who stole it is also under debate.  Here's the link to the Riverfront Times article which seems incredibly well-researched and detailed.









As I always say when I photograph and blog about urban decay - this is the stuff I love. Finding something, finding out more about it and reading the history of said item. This is what I live for as a photographer.