Cape Girardeau History and Photos

November 27, 2011January 16, 2024

How to Shoot a Barn

Well, that title is a bit presumptuous, but studies have shown that using the words “How to…” in the headline causes the story to rate higher with search engines.

When Friend Shari and I were on our way back from shooting Tower Rock Quarry and taking the scenic route where I discovered High Hill Church, she said to keep my eye out for old barns; there was one in particular she’d like to shoot again. She recalled doing it years ago and wanted to have another crack at it.

STOP!!!

We were tooling along down 177 near Egypt Mills when she hollered, “STOP!” She was always good at that. I locked down thinking she saw an 18-wheeler getting ready to hit us head-on and heard everything loose in the car slide forward.

She had spotted her barn. I threw it in reverse and cut over on CR 634 (I think) and pulled off on the side of the road with the hazard flashers on.

What are you looking for?

Being a former shrink, she’s always curious about the thought processes that go into making a photo. After dismissing her (and most other folks who ask that question), I’ve started to think about it. I told her that I would try to explain how I looked at the overall scene and then drilled into a detail here and there. As we walked around, I explained that sometimes everything would fall into place. Other times, I’d shoot a frame and decide that something didn’t work. Sometimes a slight change in angle would fix the problem; other times, there would be some extraneous object that would intrude that I couldn’t work around, and I’d move on.

I’m a sucker for contrast

I love dark photos where the light hits something and causes it to pop out. Sometimes, like in this shot, the light is striking it directly. More often, I look for a strong back or sidelight to make it translucent.

Signs that it wasn’t a good shoot

Leica made some great photo enlargers. One of the neat things about them was that their negative carriers were cut just a little larger than a 35mm frame. That let pure white light project down on the photo paper if you printed full frame. It was a point of pride to have your print have that black border around it because it showed that you “cropped in the camera.” In other words, you visualized the final product when you pushed the button.

When I looked at these pictures, I found myself reaching for the Crop tool to hack out pieces that didn’t work for me. I might have thought the composition worked, but I hadn’t successfully ‘cropped in the camera.” When we did that in the real darkroom, we’d call it “pulling it out of our rear orifice (or something close to that).”

Here’s an example. This is the full frame photo of the splotch of red paint with an orange leaf in front of it and some tendrils of vine and their shadows on the gray, weathered wood.

I couldn’t find the center of interest. Is it the leaf? Is it the vines? Is my eye supposed to follow the vines up and down, left and right? What’s important?

Cropping helps, but it’s not the answer

In this print, I’ve taken the same picture, but I’ve cropped up from the bottom and down from the top so you don’t see any of the gray wood there. Your eye tends to go toward the lighter area of a print, so this keeps you in the frame better. It also brings your eye to the leaf. I would have cropped a little more off the left, but I like the shadow of the vine over there. If you look closely, you can see the vine, then the shadow. The shadows of the vines on the right become more prominent and more interesting. Still, if the first photo was a D-, playing with it barely raised the grade to a C+.

Photo gallery of barn pictures

It’s not one of my best barn sessions. I shot this particular barn when I was riding my bike in this area about eight or nine years ago. I didn’t capture Essence de Barn then, and I’ve missed it this time, too. Maybe this barn and I just don’t click. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.

November 27, 2011May 1, 2014

Old Notre Dame High School

Brother Mark, Mother and I were taking a short cut through New Lorimier Cemetery so we could see if the flowers were still on Dad’s grave. They were. Instead of cutting through Fairmount Cemetery and coming out near the library, I whipped a left to get a mug shot of the old Notre Dame High School. I knew I had some photos of some school plays and other activities, so it would be good to bag something new to go along with them.

As it turned out, the light was really nice on the building this afternoon. What surprised me when I was half-way to the entrance was all the graffiti on the front of the building. And, it looked old. Surely this wouldn’t have been allowed to stay there when I was in school.

On closed examination, though, it was a mural or artwork. The drawing styles were different, but the line thickness and spacing indicated they had been done by the same artist. I did a quick Google and Missourian archive search, but didn’t come up with anything that would tell when it was done or who the artist was.

Madonna

I was also quite taken by the simple Madonna on the southeast wall.

The Notre Dame High School web site has a good summary of the history of the school.

Notre Dame was also a target in the notorious toilet paper wars of the 60s, but this particular stunt went sadly wrong.

Notre Dame High School photo gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.

November 25, 2011November 26, 2011

I Have Someone’s Family History

Brother Mark always likes to hit the antique shops when he comes to Cape, so we started at Annie Laurie’s. I was doing a pretty good job avoiding temptation when my eye fell upon this 1959ish black and white photo shop owner Laurie Everett had under a Christmas display. It jumped out because it was uncharacteristically sharp and well exposed for a snapshot of that era. It was for sale. Mark paid for it, so it couldn’t have been much. (Click on any photo to make it larger.)

Look at the IDs on the back

When I flipped it over, I saw that someone had taken the time to document who was in the photo:

My Sis and our Grandchildren in Tom and Jo’s basement. Christmas Eve 1959

Tommy – 3 yrs 9 mos
David 2 ” m 90s
Jeanne 1″ 7 mos
Marie ? Ha Ha!

Note for the younger generation: “Ha Ha!” was the 1959 way to say LOL.

Throwing away photos is alien to me

For budget purposes one year, I calculated that the average photographer on my staff used about 30,000 frames of film a year. Back in the day when I was buying my own film in 100-foot rolls and cutting it into 36-exposure rolls (and under the influence of One-Shot Frony), I didn’t hit those levels, but it’s safe to say that I’ve shot a lot more film than most folks. (Kodak called someone who bought 12 rolls of film a year a “heavy user.”)

I would bet that I probably have all but maybe 100 rolls of those bazillion rolls of film. I may not be able to find an individual photo right away and it may not be properly identified, but it’s there someplace. My “coffee can film” contains pictures that are more interesting to me today than the stuff I shot for the paper and filed away in negative sleeves.

How can you throw away your mother?

How could you let a photo of your mother when she was about three years old in the midst of a flock of chicks slip away? Particularly since she’s with her brother Kenneth, my namesake, who was killed in a car vs. train crash. I sure couldn’t.

Other people, obviously, can. I was at a yard sale where I picked up about a dozen Kodak slide trays. When I went to check out, I noticed that the trays were full of slides: weddings, graduations, vacation trips, first car, basically all the facets of the family’s life. I pointed it out to the seller and she said, “That’s OK. Just throw them away.” I eventually DID throw away a lot of them, but I held onto some of the better shots because it would have been a crime not to.

Mother always fills our birthday and holiday cards with family photos she’s collected over the years. It’s always the best part of the card.

Do you recognize any of these folks?

If so, I have a piece of your family history. I won’t even charge you to get it back. Mark’s already paid for it.

November 25, 2011November 25, 2011

Beep, Beep, Beep Mystery

Night before last I was working in the basement and thought I heard a beeping sound like my car’s panic alarm was honking the horn. Every once in awhile, if I bend over just right, other keys in my pocket will hit the key fob button to set it off. I walked upstairs to give a listen. Nope. Nothing in the immediate area, but I COULD hear a faint beeping. (Click on any photo to make it larger.)

I categorize threats into two categories:

Concerns Me
Doesn’t Concern Me

This fit into the second category and it wasn’t loud enough to keep me awake, so I ignored it.

Do you hear that beeping?

Brother Mark showed up at the house on mid-morning to celebrate Thanksgiving and asked, “Do you hear that beeping?”

I have to confess that I’m missing chunks of frequencies – mostly those that Wife Lila uses to ask me to do things – but I told him that I could hear it faintly. He went out to blow leaves. When he came back, he said he had tried to track down the sound and it appeared to be bouncing off Randy’s house, but not coming FROM the house.

1600 block of Kingsway

I need to explain how the 1600 block of Kingsway works. We were about the fifth house on the street, and one of the first built in the 1950s. The other homes were decades older.

If you look at the three ranch-style houses on the north side of Kingsway, we’re the one on the right. The Ailors moved into the one next to us, and the Garners were in the third house down the hill The little house below them was owned by an elderly couple, the McCunes. At the bottom left was the Hale farm; they owned the pasture behind our house.

Directly across from us lived the Tinkers. Down the hill from them was a two-story house owned by John and Mary Gray. For some reason, they fixed up a chicken house behind the big house and moved into there, leaving the big house as rental property occupied by folks we never bothered to learn names for. Eventually, the house was bought by Randy, a Cape firefighter. He was there long enough for it to be dubbed “Randy’s house.” He sold it and now it’s destined for demolition.

It’s always going to be Tinkers’

So, even though the Tinkers have been dead for years and Bill and Rhonda Boltens (great neighbors, by the way) have been living there for longer than I can remember, it’s probably always going to be “over at Tinkers” to us.

Anyway, now that you have the layout in your mind -or, are totally confused – let’s get back to the beeping story.

Doesn’t seem to be inside

The noise got louder the closer we got to Randy’s house, but it didn’t appear to be coming FROM the house. You couldn’t hear it from behind the house. It felt like it was bouncing OFF the house.

Let’s check the Garner house

I walked across the street to the old Garner house. I could see a dog inside, so I knocked on the door. A coworker in Florida posted an account last week about how she never opens the door for a stranger. Others chimed in with stories about how they always keep a gun at the door. They obviously spend all their time listening to The All Fear All the Time Network. With that in mind, I wondered if I’d get an answer.

After a couple of raps, and much dog barking, a young woman came to the door. I identified myself and said I was staying with Mother up the street. “I read your column,” she volunteered. That always feels good to hear.

I told her Mark and I were tracking down a mystery. “You mean the beeping? It’s not coming from here. I noticed it when I got home around lunchtime yesterday.” We told her we’d let her know what we found.

Past the old McCune place

We walked down the hill from what had been the McCune property and noticed that a lot of the homeowners in what used to be a pasture I roamed and camped in when I was 10 or 12 had done a lot of nice landscaping. Fortunately, the area behind our house and the next door neighbor has been left to go wild, proving habitat for all kinds of creatures, plus preserving the rural feel we’ve had since before we were in the city limits.

The sound didn’t get stronger, and it still seemed to be directional. If we moved off to the left or right, it got fainter. I thought at one time that the sound was stronger coming from the direction away from the house, but Mark convinced me that I was hearing things.

I felt like I was back taking my draft physical. They put a bunch of guys wearing only our underwear in a small, dark room, put headphones on our heads and handed us a box with a button on it. “When you hear a tone, press the button,” we were ordered by someone who looked at us like we were a lower form of life. I had my finger on the button waiting to hear something. Nothing. We all started looking at each other and shrugging our shoulders. Then, we all started pushing the button at random. Interestingly enough, we all passed.

Is it the fuzzy-tailed rat?

When we got back up the hill, Mark noticed that a tree in front of the house had a squirrel’s nest in it. “Maybe the fuzzy-tailed rat (Mark doesn’t like squirrels ever since they got in his attic) carried something up into his nest.” We wandered around the tree and ruled the fuzzy-tailed rat blameless. Well, at least I did. Mark still thinks one was the second shooter on the Grassy Knoll.

By this time, it was Hungry O’Clock and we had to chow down on some great slow-cooked roast beef and all the fixin’s. We had more desserts than any three people can eat in two weeks (but we’re gonna try). Then, my schedule showed it was time for a 37-minute nap (I had missed my 22-minute 11 o’clock nap, so I was due for an extension).

Smoke alarm theory

Shortly before dark, we piled in the car and cruised up all the streets in a one-mile radius trying to find some house that was in line-of-sight with Randy’s that was making a noise that could be hitting his old house and reflecting off it. Zip. Zero. Nada.

One last theory: Mark did a Google search on beeps and found a reference that “This alarm incorporates the internationally recognized horn signal for evacuation. During alarm mode, the horn produces three short beeps, followed by a two-second pause and then repeats. This pattern is somewhat different than the previous alarm sound, which continually beeped.”

We didn’t think it was a smoke alarm because it sounded like it was a lower frequency than most smoke alarms and it wasn’t sounding “beep pause beep pause beep” in a continuous series . We know power has been off in the house for quite awhile, so it’s possible that an alarm has drained its battery, particularly with temperatures dropping to freezing. If the new standard is for alarms to broadcast three beeps now, maybe that’s it.

If it’s still going off tomorrow, we’ll see if we can get into the house or listen at a window to see if it’s coming from the inside. Otherwise, I’m going to invoke Category Two and ignore it.