Cafe Berlin Nightlife

Wheel of Dharma

When I saw the manhole cover, I was reminded of the Bhuddist wheel of dharma.  Unfortuntaley, the dharmacakra has eight spokes, while mine only has six.  But on the same night I also found the image of the lamp against the brick ceiling, and this does seem to have eight, shadowy spokes radiating from the center.   I don't know if these symbols, revealing themselves over the course of the night, were trying to tell me something.  Ideally there should be a third here, but I guess I didn't stay out late enough to find it.

Peace Park a la Josef Sudek

I don't know why I've never photographed in Peace Park at night.  It just didn't seem to hold much promise.  I was downtown last Tuesday night conducting a night shoot with my Access Arts photo class.  We were dawdling through campus when we walked into Peace Park and I started trying to find a spring blossoms shot.  Sometimes this is pretty hard at night, as the light is low contrast and not terribly blossom-appropriate.  In the work of Josef Sudek, the one-armed photographic "Poet of Prague", his treatment of spring blossoms and landscapes is decidedly low contrast and low key.  So I borrowed a page from his book.  Columbia will never be as romantically, fog-shroudedly photographic as Prague in the 1950s and 60s, but here is a nod to the independent vision of Mr. Sudek.

Missouri Theatre in Snow

This was the Missouri Theatre before the facelift and interior renovations which transformed it a few years ago.  The sign and its space-age font, albeit dated, has a certain, vintage appeal.  To our left of the theatre, at the time, were a shoe repair shop and Acorn Books.  I believe that the shoe repair shop has moved over to 8th street, and Acorn Books is now located out in the Marketplace off I-70.  Salt of the Earth Records used to be in the same row of shops.