not the one you think
Arch. Saint Louis.
In addition to THE arch, I found these arches. Their job was to hold up a ramp into a parking garage, and as far as I could tell they were doing what they were supposed to do.
(The parking garage itself is abandoned.)
Saint Louis, Missouri
photographed 9.2.2026
arch (with mesh)
I was in Saint Louis for a week; the hotel was across the street from the arch. I saw it many times every day and my challenge to myself was to photograph it from non-traditional angles.
This was made from inside the visitor’s center.
I want to note that my original plan was to spend time on the grounds of the arch doing street photography. That didn’t work out because it was SO HOT that people with any sense were inside an air-conditioned building. But the point is (I tell myself) that I thought about doing it and made the effort to accomplish it. Apparently I can not control the weather….
Gateway Arch
Saint Louis, Missouri
photographed 8.30.2026
inter/faith
I went to the chapel at the airport.
It’s all the way at the end of the terminal: it seems like anyone who is at the chapel found it on purpose. It didn’t strike me as a place where I could find solace or meaning or whatever I would have been seeking at a chapel.
Except, what I was actually seeking was a photograph of a liminal space at a busy and noisy facility. And I did find that.
Saint Louis Lambert International Airport
Saint Louis, Missouri
photographed 8.31.2026
night/vision
I didn’t know when I made this shot that the arch would be going dark every night for a month, starting the very next evening. I was so naive in those days, two weeks ago.
Gateway Arch
Saint Louis, Missouri
photographed 8.31.2026
tortilla
In downtown Saint Louis, one quarter of the block that’s bounded by Olive and Pine Streets and North 7th and North 6th Streets contains a surface-level parking lot. The rest of the block is a huge, vacant graffiti-encrusted parking structure. The street-side businesses are gone, with only a few reminders that you could, at one time, shop at Mr. Curry’s Indian Cuisine, the Olive Express Mart, Quizno’s, Nova Red Karaoke, Pharaoh’s Donut, the Edible Difference, or the Tortilla Grille (and other places whose signage didn’t survive). It’s sort of amusing to see the ghosts of these places that didn’t make it, I guess, but it sure does represent the lost dreams of a lot of small-business owners and their employees in a way that takes the amusement right out of it. (It was the Pharaoh’s Donuts sign, with a drawing of an actual pharaoh on it, that got to me.)
Saint Louis, Missouri
photographed 9.2.2026
One Day | One Image 