Well now I know where I got my fascination for walking around the city taking pictures of architectural geometries and dramatic perspectives and stark contrasts between shadow and light:

I just saw West Side Story on the big screen for the first time, and it is BRILLIANT cinema--and a lush visual poem of color and movement and shape and pattern that I never fully appreciated from my endless viewings on a TV screen. I grew up devouring the movie soundtrack and I’ve known every word and note and phrase and nuance of Leonard Bernstein’s score and Stephen Sondheim’s libretto for as long as I can remember. I’d assumed I’d spend my first big-screen viewing obsessing over Jerome Robbins’ choreography and staging, but instead I kept examining every camera angle and forced perspective and texture and shadowing and gang-specific palette of Robert Wise’s cinematography. And now I have the final piece of the puzzle for my full love of and artistic respect for this movie.

OK, well not the FINAL final piece of the puzzle; the final final piece may or may not (which totally means does) revolve (literally!) around the ... um ... globe-like butts of the dancers, which also can be fully appreciated only on the big screen.

Anyway, here are some non-butt-related examples of the photos I've taken as I've wandered around Cedar Rapids not realizing I was pretending to be Robert Wise: