Monthly Archives: May 2012

I Went to Woodstock – Well, Not That Woodstock!

We may have lived in Chicago for quite a while now but there are still plenty of places to explore that we haven’t visited. One of those places is Woodstock IL. Nancy found out about it from a website on great small towns in the US. We decided to pay it a visit. The day was supposed to start out overcast and clear up into a sunny day. That bit didn’t quite happen to plan but everything else about the town proved to be a success.

It was about an hour from home to get to Woodstock. The GPS had a location with a parking lot close to the town square programmed in and that worked out to be perfect. We were a short stroll from the square and a small farmers’ market was underway. We are always suckers for good food at these markets and so were soon carrying a few bits around. We wandered around the square looking for somewhere for lunch. This is always worth doing when there is food for sale because you otherwise end up buying way more food than is a good idea!

The town square is a great spot. The buildings are a mix of styles but all look pretty impressive and in good condition. The old style of the place is obviously appealing to movie makers. Have a viewing of Groundhog Day and you will recognize the town as Woodstock – a long way from Pennsylvania. It had some other treats but more will come about that in due course.

In one of these shots you will see a crepe restaurant. We stopped there for lunch and the food was really good. There were other places around the square that had more traditional fare but this one seemed to have a different approach and we were not disappointed. This blog has never really been a dining review place but here is one recommendation for you!

Lightning Up the Mood

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A little night shooting today and a confession about my role in what was going on. We moved to Chicago eight years ago. When we first got here, we were amazed by the storms we got. There seemed to be lots of them and they were really pretty spectacular. When looking out of the window we would see lightning all the time. Sometimes the storms went on for so long it was hard to believe that it was a storm and not someone planting an emergency vehicle outside the window – a neat trick at the height of our place!

Strangely, for the last few years, we have had very few storms. They seem to miss the city and go either north or south of us. Some people are getting a lot of them but not us. This was a bit disappointing to me because I love storms! They are so dramatic and very cool. They are, of course, rather destructive but watching them is exciting. This week we got a good storm. The sky was alive and it was a lot of fun. It was also rather late and I needed to go to bed. Consequently, I cheated.

My 17-40mm lens is not enough to cover the full view south of us so I went with the fish-eye zoom instead. I set the camera up on the tripod, added the intervalometer and basically set it on its way. The gap between the shutter closing and the trigger for the next shot was just long enough to allow the file to write out. Then I went to bed. The result is a LOT of pictures with almost all of them of no use. However, it did capture a couple of shots that I really like. I even tried using the new lens correction facility in Photoshop CS6. Our view is a little less impressive since the Trump Tower blocked a big chunk of the skyline but it still gives a nice look to the storm. Hope you like them too.

Lots of Work Down the Drain

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No pictures in this piece and that is kind of the point. I have been working for a long time on setting up a photo shoot. The plan was to get some pretty unique shots of a rare jet that is owned buy a great guy I have worked with for a long time. The plan was to charter a camera ship that allowed some options to get shots that are harder to get normally. I had found an operator of the right aircraft that was in the right place and was happy to do the job.

We had the pricing agreed and they had even sent me the draft lease documents. I had made some amendments to these and sent them back to be finalized and then suddenly everything goes quiet. I send a follow up and hear nothing for a while. Then I send another email and the response I get is not good. They have found a more lucrative job and I am no longer on their schedule! How about that? You spend time briefing what is required, discussing all of the details, agreeing the pricing and you think that you have it all agreed. You are finalizing a lease document which includes a down payment so you think they are serious. Then you are dropped like a stone.

I think it is fair to say I am really pissed off. I am not going to name names because that isn’t going to help and one day I might need them for something else so I will keep the details out of this. However, I try to always be professional in the way I deal with people whatever part of my work is involved. I guess not everyone shares that approach. If they found a better job, perhaps they might have tried to solve my problem as well. They gave me a name for an alternative but this short a notice period is unsurprisingly meaning that an alternative is not available. The other guys tried hard to come up with a suggestion and I am grateful to them for that.

Having ranted I shall now wrap up. I was really hoping that you would see here the great results of what had been planned but I shall have to say instead that it just didn’t happen. Now to see if there is something we can come up with instead.

Changing Your Name – Even if You Are a Building Pt 2

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And so we progress to Part 2. Attentive readers will already be aware that the Unitrin sign had been removed. I was a lazy boy and watched from my living room. The following weekend the new sign was scheduled to go up. Fortunately, we had friends staying with us. Mark is a flight test engineer and a pilot so the suggestion that some aviation action could be added to the weekend was good for him. Since it was close to home, we wouldn’t be missed for a short while on a Sunday morning.

The replacement of the sign was pretty much the reverse of the previous week. The letters and the logo had been assembled on the street on the back of trucks. Two sides of the building had to be done and fortunately our side was to be first. The placement of the signs was a touch more tricky than the removal. Pulling them off meant getting them clear and dropping them down to the street. Lifting the new ones up was complicated by the way in which the letters – which are large but don’t weigh much – can catch the wind and start to rotate. The crews on the building have to catch the tag lines and then pull them steady before positioning them.

They soon got a good rhythm going and we watched the letters and the logo go up on the first side of the building. We then retreated to further away as the other side was dealt with, not least because a lot of it was out of sight from the better locations. Midwest did a great job as always and it was good to see the team. Thanks everyone and Mark certainly was glad to see one of these jobs in person.

Changing Your Name – Even if You Are a Building Pt 1

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This story comes in two parts (if the title didn’t give that away already!) and it is one that is a little bit of luck. Regular readers know that I do a lot of jobs with Midwest Helicopters. This was a job of theirs but not one that I was involved with. However, it just happened to take place outside my window so I got to watch anyway. There I was on a lazy Sunday morning (I was being lazy even if others obviously weren’t) catching up on a bit of TiVo viewing when a helicopter comes in to view out of my living room window. Familiar shape and colors but what were they up to?

Turns out a building across the river from me was due to have its name changed. The company had renamed from Unitrin to Kemper. Unitrin was plastered on two sides of the building in large illuminated letters so they needed to come down. The first week of the job was to take down the old letters. I could have hurried outside and grabbed some shots but this was a lazy day (did I mention that before?) and so I just grabbed a camera and shot through the windows.

It was about an hour’s work to get the letters from each side of the building and drop them down to the truck on the street. All of this from the comfort of my living room interspersed with a bit of Grand Prix watching! Of course, if something comes down, there is probably something to replace it? And so we shall progress to Part 2…

Art Institute Gardens

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I recently had lunch with a friend down in the Loop. We had finished eating and it was a glorious day so we decided to take a stroll out towards Grant Park. As we crossed Michigan Avenue, we came to a garden attached to the Art Institute. I admitted that I had never been in to this garden and my friend said exactly the same thing! Neither of us could explain why that should be the case so we wandered in to have a look around.

It was a very pleasant space and quite tranquil considering how close the bustle of Michigan Avenue was. We strolled about and just had a nice stroll. A few days later, when I had some visitors from out of town, I made the effort to go back so they could see this great spot as well. Nancy hadn’t been there either so somehow a bunch of us had managed to miss this place for many years!

It was then a short walk to Millennium Park where the water features had been turned on for the first time this year. Plenty of people were out enjoying the park although there weren’t any kids standing under the water as it fell. I guess it isn’t quite that warm just yet! It will be a while before that happens. However, it was still good enough to attract the time of a lot of people, probably fresh from their visits to the Bean!