A visit to Indy's Mass Ave

Every once in a while you'll find me saying how I've gotten behind on staying current with this "log within a blog" and need to do some catching up.

Today's post is about one of those "catch-ups." In fact, I've been sitting on these images, taken in separate shoots in 2011 along Massachusetts Avenue in downtown Indianapolis (now that I think of it, there's a shoot nine months ago I'm also still sitting on, but that's for another time). These Mass Ave shots were to be the first in a series of many shoots for a project that simply fizzled by year's end. Actually, I'm not finished there; I do plan to revisit Mass Ave, one of six designated cultural districts in Indianapolis, but at my leisure and for whatever reasons or whimsy that strike me at the time.

These images were taken in August on the day of the Mass Ave Criterium (a cycling competition) and on the early evening of Oct. 7, a Friday that was also a First Friday Art Tour. The Art Tours are held monthly in several cultural districts of Indy. People stroll the district, ducking in and out of shops, museums, galleries and eateries to enjoy what each of those establishments has presented for that particular month.

On Oct. 7, I was fortunate to catch a special jealousyjane couture fashion and costume show inside Century 21 Scheetz in the 600 block of Mass Ave. A dozen or so women were modeling the fashions of Sarah Ferguson, and they invited me to grab the pictures you see in this post. In addition, Oct. 7 happened to be not long after the city installed its distinctive blue holiday lights in the trees along the avenue, so I took some creative shots of those.

A street folk musician who told me his name that evening (I've since forgotten it, although I think he said his first name was Mike) said he was planning to travel to Europe the following day and invited me to photograph him. I told him to look for an image or two of him at my blog, and unfortunately I disappointed him because none of the pictures were ever posted here ... until now.

Click on the following link to view a gallery of my Mass Ave shots to date.

  

Above: The Agio restaurant's days were numbered when I took this picture in October. It closed not long afterward, so I worked the composition to show the building listing a bit.

Above: From the jealousyjane coutre fashion show, models (from left) Annie Vowell, Chloe Combs and Leah Kinder.

Above: From the jealousyjane coutre fashion show, models (from left) Amanda Veldkamp, Angela Denton and Lauren Guilkey.

Above: From the jealousyjane coutre fashion show, models (from left) Lisa Charrie, Katie Fitzgerald, Sarah Reams, Jamie Napier, Emily Reno, Mattice Kelich, Michaela Bunting and LaDonna Dee.

 

 

 

Above: Mosaic artist Kathryn Woods with one of her works at an outdoor kiosk on First Friday. Below, her reflection appears in the far right circular mosaic mirror on another of her displays. In the other circular mirror, a reflection of the camera I used to take the photo.

Elegance in the urban landscape

While walking back to my car after my shoot Saturday at the inaugural Indy Crit cycling competition, I came across this striking, lavender-colored bloom in a couple of the gardens along the north border of University Park in Downtown Indianapolis.

Thanks to the help of a blog visitor, I've been able to identify this flower as a Cleome Rose Queen.

The closeup shot (above) comes with a bonus, tiny insect clinging upside down along one of the thin plant whiskers in the lower left portion. I like the perspective shot (below) almost as much for its elegance: the combination of bloom, its distinctive, sculpted stem and the drooping foliage of its buddy to the right.

A good one to ... well, make you feel good.

Reflecting on ... downtown buildings

Here a few reflection images I grabbed Saturday while strolling Meridian Street during the inaugural Indy Crit cycling competition on a Downtown Indianapolis loop course (see previous post) -- and one I grabbed last November while covering the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon and Half-Marathon.

The one above is a no-trickery-on-my-end distortion. The bellowed panels on the right just happened to bend that way from where I was standing.

The first one below I decided to take because of the juxtaposition of the reflection against the real-time U.S. flag to the right of it.

The third simply is the federal courts building, as it looks when bounced off the all-glass facade of its AT&T neighbor on the west side of Meridian.

Finally, the last one -- the one I grabbed last November -- is the State Capitol, reflecting off a glass sheen on the east side of Illinois Street.