Photos

This was shot on the street in the South Main Arts District of Memphis, on Main Street, just a few blocks from the Arcade and just down the street from the Civil Rights Museum. I will refrain from showing you the shots I got from that museum as the weather turned especially nasty when we were there. There are no photographs allowed inside the museum due to "copyright issues" with the family of Martin Luther King, Jr., as well. Not sure what that means, but I didn't do the whole tour anyway - have to save something. What would we do the next time? Sit on Beale Street and drink Big Ass Beers and snap photos of other drunken and otherwise interesting people?

We have the Civil Rights Museum and the Stax Museum, the Pyramid and Mud Island and maybe a side trip to Clarksdale Mississippi yet to do and I know other stuff we were unable to check out. We only got about a quarter way through my wife's list of restaurants to check out, too and we have to go back to Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken!

Anyway, I am already reminiscing about this trip. Even with the rain it was wonderful. We were wandering up S. Main St. after our breakfast at the Arcade, Linda loves to go in those clothing shops, the ones with the handmade articles of clothing and hand-stitched jackets and that stuff, and I like to stand outside and look at the people. As I said, it was raining a bit, and there was a dearth of people wandering around so I noticed this parking meter. All dressed up, complete with little plastic bowling figures wired and spray painted blue. I could have gotten a closer POV for you, but I thought this shot was a little more interesting with the contrasting colors, the gleam of the rain on the sidewalk and street and the young men across the street. Then I noticed all the parking meters were dressed up in differing manners of artistic splendor. I thought about shooting a couple dozen for a montage of parking meters - that's something that has never been done on TE, I bet... But then I thought, well, who the heck really cares about parking meters and how artistically enhanced they are? I guess I do, since I am posting this shot for you, but who'd look at a couple dozen of 'em? Ok, probably me, too...

Anyway, I thought this shot was somewhat interesting and it will break up my gallery by being in the middle of shots of people playing guitars and singing and balancing microphones on their body parts. It will also beef up my travelogue of Memphis in May with yet another shot. Perhaps it will also provide the prospective visitor with some further information he might not know about before he comes to Memphis for that photographic weekend. (Don't go on the weekend of the Beale St. Music Festival unless you wear mud boots and a raincoat!).

Ah, TE, "Learning about the world through photography" - indeed! Where else can you see stuff like this???