Category Archives: Chicago

Dolphins

My zoo membership was recently renewed so a trip to Brookfield was in order. We included a visit to the underwater viewing gallery for the dolphins. This can be a bit hit and miss depending on where the dolphins are and how much they want to show themselves. This time turned out to be a bit different.

One of the dolphins seemed a lot less interested in swimming around and far more fascinated by us. It was up at the end of the gallery hanging out by the window. I thought moving up would be the trigger for it moving off but went anyway. I was wrong. Instead, I ended up having a pretty amazing interaction with the dolphin. It seemed to enjoy having its picture taken and kept coming up to the window, resting its blowhole against the glass, blowing some bubbles and making lots of clicking sounds.

No point in overestimating these things but I really felt like it was talking to me. I was captivated and it seemed to have no boredom for this so we spent a lot of time like this. It was very cool. The pictures may not be the most technically accurate. Shooting through thick glass into water is problematic and the focus on the eye is not always there but, frankly, I don’t care. This dolphin was looking straight at me for ages and these images remind me of just how cool that was.

Merchandise Mart

Leave a Reply

I know what you are thinking. It has been a long time and no helicopter photos Rob! You are right, it has been too long. Fortunately, I can rectify the situation. The good people at Midwest Helicopters had a very intensive project recently. The Merchandise Mart in Chicago was the project in question. They are installing a series of new chiller units on the roof of the building. These are big units – too large for the Midwest helicopters to lift as it happens. However, before they go up, there is plenty of work to be done.

Big chiller units need to be mounted to something and getting the structural steelwork up on the roof is no small task. It needed over 180 lifts to complete the job. It was planned for two possible days with the whole day being booked for each occasion to maximize what could be done. Flying the helicopter all day was intensive for the aircraft and required two pilots to alternate in order to avoid getting exhausted.

I got myself up on to the roof of the Mart for the job. The Mart is a huge building. It used to be the largest floor space building in the world before the Pentagon was built. It might still be second (and, if I was diligent, I could probably look that up to confirm it but we know that isn’t happening while I am in mid-story). The roof is a big space and there were two separate areas where work was going to be done.

Mounting points on the roof had been installed in advance. The task on the day was to lift each piece of steel to the roof and bolt it into place. The next would follow and the frameworks for mounting the chillers would gradually come into place as the ironworkers bolted each new piece to the previous pieces. (The chillers will follow in a few weeks when Construction Helicopters come to town and I hope to cover that too.) Each pick went pretty quickly. As the new piece came into place, the guys on the roof grabbed it and bolted it into place.

The line would be released and the helicopter would go down for the next piece while the guys finished bolting the piece into place and preparing for the next section. This was a continuous process as long as the helicopter had fuel. Given how warm and sunny it was, the black-painted roof was a hot place to be and the guys were working hard. I was glad to only be photographing the whole thing!

After the helicopter left for the first refueling, I headed down from the roof. I had other things to be done that day and headed off. My original plan had been to get some shots from the ground on the second day. A lot of the steel was being stored on a barge on the river so getting some shots of that being lifted to the roof was the plan.

However, the team was super-efficient and completed the whole job in the one day. This was a great success for them and, while they were exhausted at the end of it, I am sure they were very pleased with the result. Unfortunately, with no second day, I missed out on getting the other shots I had planned. Oh well, there is always another day.

Oak Park

Leave a Reply

Just west of downtown Chicago is an area called Oak Park. This is a pleasant enough suburb but it is a popular place if you are a fan of architecture. My sister was recently visiting and she is a big fan of Frank Lloyd Wright. He was responsible for a lot of buildings in the Oak Park area and had a house there himself which is now a museum to his work. Since she was in town, a trip out to take a look at the buildings seemed worthwhile.

There are a great variety of interesting houses in Oak Park with only some of them being Lloyd Wright creations. Some are obviously copying his prairie style and others are just funky in their own right. A stroll around certainly shows off some great houses. You will not be alone if you take this trip. There are plenty of visitors wandering around looking at the houses, most of whom have stopped off at the visitor center and rented the audio tour. I felt quite unusual to not have headphones on as I walked around!

The weather was quite friendly the day we were there. Some of the houses are painted colorfully so a sunny day really brings out the different hues. Making the trip either earlier in the day or later would certainly make the light a little less harsh but this wasn’t a photo tour for me but a trip for my sister. Getting some pictures as we went along was just a side benefit. I should probably try and plan another visit to suit photo taking but we shall see whether that ever squeezes its way into the schedule.

Millennium Park

Leave a Reply

Millennium Park is one of the most popular attractions in Chicago so we obviously had to pay it a visit. At various times I have taken pictures of the park that I like. These show the park itself. However, one of the things I love about the place is the effect it has on people. The Bean in particular is great for people watching. They are all looking at their own reflections in the mirrored surface and it causes so many people so much fun, you just can’t help but enjoy the fun they are having.

The new Maggie Daley Park is being constructed at the moment. That cuts off a section of the park. I wonder when it will be finished and whether we will still be in Chicago to see it. I do hope so. A few other things have changed since my sister was last here including the new Modern Wing of the Art Institute. We took a walk across the bridge to see that before heading in to the loop. The Art Institute has a Picasso exhibit running and they have added his name to Daley Plaza in front of his sculpture there as part of the publicity for the exhibit. That seemed worth a look before we headed back.

Botanic Gardens

Leave a Reply

As I have mentioned before, visitors provide a good reason to do things that I might otherwise put off. My sister being in town was a good source of reasons to do stuff! That included a trip to the Botanic Gardens. In a quirk of the weather we have had this spring in Chicago, this turned out to be a sunny day but a cool one with the temperature hanging around in the high 50s. We got into the 80s a couple of days later and then the 40s two days after that. Crazy stuff this year!

The Botanic Gardens are bursting into life in the spring so are a great sight. As with other tourist type trips, a visit in the middle of the day is not ideal photographically since the light is very harsh. However, that wasn’t the point. Enjoying the day was what it was all about and that we certainly did. Plenty of flowers were out in bloom. The trees have suddenly discovered leaves after being bare branched for what seems like forever.

Of course, we weren’t the only genii to have thought this was a good idea. The place was packed. I can’t blame everyone for wanting to be there but they do ruin some of my pictures! What are they thinking? In common with several places we go to, a trip a bit further from the visitor center does thin out the herd a bit. Walking too far is not what some people want to do. Good for me! I am not much of a flower photographer and shooting in the bare sun does not make for great flower shots but I gave a few a go anyway. Most of those will never see the light of day again, though…

Convertible Delivery Trucks

Leave a Reply

The number of bridges and underpasses in the city mean there are plenty of signs showing vehicles what the height restrictions are. As someone who drives cars that will fit anywhere, I don’t pay a huge amount of attention to these signs. I don’t even have a honking great SUV so there is never any problem. If I was a truck driver, I imagine I might be a bit more aware of these things. Then again, maybe you assume the height they post on the sign has a bit of wiggle room built in.

Whatever the story, someone got it wrong the other day near us. I was walking across the pedway to go to Michigan Avenue when I saw a guy getting a step ladder out and looking at the top of the truck – or at least what used to be the top of the truck. Half of it was gone and a few of the cross struts for the roof could be seen hanging down inside the vehicle. I guess they got it wrong. Either that or the sunny weather made them turn the truck into a convertible!

What Are They Thinking – Or Are They Thinking At All?

2 Replies

Something happened here in Chicago the other day and I thought a blog post was in order. I seriously doubt the volume of traffic this blog has will strike fear into the hearts of those concerned but I couldn’t let this go by without some mention. There are two main papers in Chicago. The Tribune and the Sun-Times. This week the Sun-Times laid off all of its staff photographers. Gone! In their place, the journalists are being trained to take better pictures with their phones.

I know, as a photographer, I am a bit biased here. However, I can’t be too far from the truth in thinking that is one really bloody stupid idea. I know the newspaper world is not a happy one at the moment but I am thinking this is not going to help them. Newspaper pictures have a tradition of illustrating a piece dramatically. That is because they employed people who knew what they were doing telling a visual story. I am not picking on the journalists who will pick up the slack here but will they be the ones to take on this skill as a result of a course on shooting with their phone? Will their focus be on getting a great shot or getting the information they need to write the piece. I imagine they have to get video too for the online version. Three jobs in one. Great value for money or three jobs being done half-assed (should that be third-assed)?

If you had seen a number of the positions disappear over time, you could imagine that they were cutting the slack out and working the remaining staff harder. This might even be construed as trying to maintain things on a smaller budget. however, when you just cut out the whole staff in one go, there is no way to view that as anything other than giving up on part of the story telling process. If telling stories is all you do, that really is the beginning of the end. I am sure that the paper will be more than happy to have readers send in their pictures and, if they are really lucky, get them printed for free! Hurrah! Lucky reader getting their work published for nothing and lucky rest of the readers getting someone’s free images instead of something more thought out from someone who has been doing this for a long time and knows what they are doing.

I don’t get the Sun-Times so I am not going to notice the difference. However, if the Trib follows suit, we are doomed. Someone has to maintain some standards. For a while, the Trib went downhill rapidly as some of its ownership issues got worked out. It was crap! There was virtually nothing there for a while. It has picked up again and the new owners seem to have given the team a bit more scope to make a decent paper. One wonders whether the Sun-Times will be so lucky. I do hope so. Once these institutions are gone, they won’t be back.

Older and Wiser Heads

Leave a Reply

I have spent a lot of time in recent times over near Wells Street as a result of the bridge replacement program that they have been going through. That puts me outside the Merchandise Mart building along the river. Along the front of the building is a hall of fame of old Chicago figures. A series of pillars are lined up along the river with each having a bust of a famous person on top. These are nicely aligned and caught my eye as I was walking by. As an aside, if you watched the TV series Boss, you will have seen these busts as part of the title sequence.

And It’s Attached

Leave a Reply

You should have seen the video of the move by now. The effort to float the new span into place was pretty impressive. The joints are a tight tolerance to be met but you are moving a large barge with a tug to get them there and those are not the most subtle of tools. however, a combination of the big pushes from the tug and putting lines on to the other moored barges allowed the team to carefully control the position of the barge and get the span in to place.

This was a popular thing. It happened mid morning on a sunny day so plenty of people came out to see it. TV crews were running around near me filming it and I was trying to get along the river to get different angles while still having the time lapse running in one spot (and hopefully nobody stealing the camera on the tripod while I am not looking). The TV camera operator I was chatting to was a lot of fun. They had been told to come out but not told too much. However, they were glad to be watching something fun rather than filming the less happy sides of city news.

With the barge in place, the crews got to work attaching the span. The first task was the bolt the lower spar in to place. The crews were climbing over these area getting the bolts in place. There seemed to be a large contingent of people standing watching this happen. Far more seemed to be watching rather actually doing anything at this point but I imagine a fair number of city people wanted to see such a high profile job get done.

The last step would be to put the remaining structure in place to complete the truss. That had to be done so the span could then support itself.

In to Place She Goes

Leave a Reply

The movement of the bridge in to its new location finally went ahead after a lot of waiting on my part. While I was shooting stills, I did set up a second camera to get a time lapse of the move. Below you can see things a lot faster than they were at the time.