Upon entering the Chicago Botanic Garden I couldn’t help but notice the white and yellow color hugging the many hills running through the first section of the grounds. Unfortunately, you get a much better view of them from your car on your way to the parking. By the time you get into the main grounds the flowers are across the water from you, and there is no way to get there but to walk around… or by camera.
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May 18, 2013
Daffodils on the hills
May 17, 2013
Through the wall
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May 16, 2013
Back to the Flamingo & back to the beginning
I have less than 30 posts to go to complete a full year of blogging daily. That’s kind of crazy. I’m not very good and repeating anything for more than a week, though I’ll acknowledge that I actually slipped up five times this year, missing my midnight deadline. One wasn’t my fault, however, as WordPress sent one of my posts to “draft” rather than publishing it, and I’ve added one new photograph no later than every 30 hours for 338 consecutive days. It’s fairly exhausting, to be honest. This blog is technically more than a year old. My first post published on May 10th, 2012. On June 14th, however, I’ll hit that magic moment of 365 straight days with a new photograph – if you count the five published hours after their deadlines.
This is the third installment of Calder’s Flamingo in that time period. The other two were night shots from the opposite side of the sculpture. On this afternoon I counted no less than four other people shooting their own versions of the subject. I trust their blogs are coming along well.
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May 15, 2013
Mirror wall intersection
I’ve tried to be more aware of details in recent shoots, so I picked an intersection the other night and stayed there for the ten minutes I had. Just as I was about to leave these cars’ bumpers peaked out from behind the marble wall on my left, so I set up to get them as they made their initial move. The effect is not quite the double image I expected, but it is still very effective to my eye. Often times when shooting at night long exposures and low ISO levels are beneficial, but in this situation a shutter speed of a second or less was needed in order to give the outline of the vehicles. I had to correct a lot of noise in the resulting image, but that’s kind of fun when you know the result is executed to your satisfaction.
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May 14, 2013
Much to consider… like a car on the roof
The overabundance of signage should give it away, but parking is most ridiculous in Chicago. I won’t even explain it, because if you don’t live here or haven’t visited every parking story sounds like a fish tale. Trust me, there are potentially no worse places in the world (we’re talking major metropolis) with parking so expensive and complicated.
My favorite part of this image is the car on the roof. It’s completely ridiculous, and yet it’s very easily explained. I believe that’s a parking garage on the upper right that happens to share the roof of this building. Nothing to it, though I had to wonder why that fire escape door is open. Maybe Jason Bourne landed his vehicle on the roof from a nearby building and slipped the authorities?
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May 13, 2013
Turning bus
Buses are kind of awesome subjects because of all their lights. If you get them at the right time they kind of burn light into your image just right. I got two shots of this bus spinning around the corner and heading to The Loop. Though the other was better, I like how you can tell it’s a bus in this shot. Sometimes it’s function over form, even though you don’t lose much in terms of light here.
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May 12, 2013
Rush hour by train and boat
The other day I posted this “Villains” graffiti from the next bridge down. Three days later I was surprised that it was still there. I moved closer to get a different shot of it and then rush hour just kind of happened all at once. Boats, trains and more trains kept flying past. It was impossible to get a shot without something rolling or floating through my frame. Frustrated at first, I decided to use them to my advantage. I shot wider, and let them all in. They became the subject, though the graffiti still makes a cameo. That yellow boat is a river taxi, which I’ve never tried. I’m sure it’s hard to cut down side streets that way.
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May 11, 2013
Under the corner
This is a cool old building along Washington Street just west of the river. This corner is cut out to allow service vehicles to tunnel from the street across this edge for a couple of dozen feet, then down the alley. This alley that cozies up against a parking garage within the bowels of the building next door. That allows a lot of competing light to come through the makeshift security wall of metal fencing. The building next door also happens to be Boeing, and they have some of the more active security in town. They’re very nice, but they made me leave just after this one shot.
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May 10, 2013
Chicago colored
I’ll write more on this when I have time, but for today, here is a colorful view of the city…
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May 9, 2013
Bonsai 2
I posted another Bonsai tree photo recently, and I wanted to do this one a bit differently. I left in most of the elements around the tree and cleaned things up significantly. For some reason – one I can’t remember – your photographer forgot to shoot the card accompanying this tree in the garden display, so it’s devoid of a name. Because the roots hang onto the rock in such a way, I’m wondering if it’s a bush rather than a tree. Anyone ever see a Bonsai bush before?
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