I’d never been to St. Louis prior to my move to the midwest, but since then I’ve visited twice and discovered an odd love for the city. It’s my favorite kind of city to photograph: the kind full of variety among its neighborhoods and its citizens, but in a way that manages not to feel completely artificially dictated. St. Louis has so much texture–in both the literal and the metaphorical sense–and that makes it a real treat to visit and photograph.

During my first visit–last October, I believe–the weather remained insistently drizzly and overcast. To my own surprise, I didn’t mind. It made for an atmospheric stroll through the landscape of old factories and crumbling asphalt and chain link fencing trimmed in barbed-wire’s loops and lines. But I was still glad to arrive to far better weather on my second visit, if only to add some variety to the photos. The mood of a city can change so drastically depending on the weather–I guess that’s not exactly a novel discovery on my part, but in this instance it seemed to hit home anew.

I realized after my first visit that I had nowhere near enough good shots to make a full post of it. I suspect that I might’ve been a little too busy antique shopping and sipping local absinthe (absinthe tends to show up in the most unexpected places, doesn’t it?) to pay as much attention to the photography bit as I should have.

But the solution to that problem was a simple one–I would just have to go back and get more photos! So, as usual seizing any excuse to travel, I picked a recent weekend to retrace my steps (tire tracks?) to St. Louis. This time, my mother (a fabulously talented digital artist in her own right–just check out ledablack.com) was in from DC for a visit to Champaign, so we decided to drive up to St. Louis together. We both brought our cameras, and we made a very satisfying mother-daughter photography trip/emotional bonding experience/goth-clothing thrift-store-scavenger-hunt out of it. And I returned home with just enough new photos to make a neat little 2-trip compilation post.