spring (pink i)

Morning set, with a cheap Sima 100mm soft focus lens. Which is basically a single plastic(?) lens in a cheap plastic tube. It doesn't feel like a real lens; it feels like it maybe ought to be one of those gag lenses that's actually a squirt gun or something. It also doesn't really look much like a real lens, and it's only a matter of time before I get WTF-is-that questions, which I never enjoy. But hey, it's good for interesting photos of flowers, which is the main thing.

spring (red iii)

spring (white)

autumn, sellwood bridge

So, yes, it's weird to post a bunch of fall photos on a sunny spring day. I have a bit of a backlog, you see. As for why I'm posting these right now, well, Dave Knows Portland was written up in the Oregonian this morning, and I've been getting a few click-throughs since Dave thoughtfully links to this humblest of humble blogs. And as luck would have it, the top post people would see upon clicking through was a bit of urban decay in Las Vegas. That just didn't seem right, somehow. So here's an overly large batch of somewhat outdated photos instead. Enjoy!

Neonopolis, Las Vegas

Here are a few photos of Las Vegas's "Neonopolis", a recent but mostly derelict shopping center just east of the canopied part of Fremont St., downtown. A recent Las Vegas Weekly article speculates about what's going on with the place and why it tanked so badly. I'm not familiar enough with the situation to know for sure, but I have a sorta-paradoxical theory: It may have been just too fake to succeed in Vegas. Or too much of the wrong kind of fake. It is, or was, essentially a generic suburban mall with a neon theme, with a few Cancun-esque fratboy bars on the ground floor to liven it up a bit. I haven't the remotest clue who the target demographic for this kind of thing would be. Probably the same people who were supposed to (and didn't) flock to Portland's Rose Quarter entertainment complex.

On a semi-related tangent, if you like these photos -- or you like the idea of these photos and wish they were better -- you might also enjoy Bill Beebe's photos of derelict buildings and such in Orlando.

spring (blue)

I'd share another trade secret with you, but Trade Secret #3 is that there are far fewer trade secrets than you might expect, and most of them aren't even completely true, including this one.

spring (red ii)

If I had a box of crayons (or a Pantone color book) handy, I could've tried to match the exact shade of the flowers here and in the previous 'red' post and use those names instead. But, sadly, no. So it's strictly primary colors and Roman numerals for us today.

In case you're curious, this bush is next to the long stairs up from RiverPlace to Naito Pkwy., downtown Portland.

spring (purple)

Trade secret #2: Even if you can identify the flowers (say, tulips), using a naming convention for a few posts in a row makes it look like you know what you're doing.

spring (red i)

A little trade secret for all of you out there in Gentle Readerland: Giving posts artsy-sounding names with colors in them is great, because that way you don't have to admit you have no clue what kind of flowers these are.

Sshh, don't tell anyone.