Category Archives: photo

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!

Looking Down on Everyone

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If you thought I was suggesting I look down on others, you were right – just not in the way your thought???  Having visitors provides an opportunity to do the sightseeing things that the city has to offer.  One of those things is to go to the top of tall buildings and look down on the world around you.  We went with the option of the Sears Tower, sometimes referred to these days as the Willis Tower but not by too many people I suspect!

This is the most popular one for tourists visiting the city so an early start is advisable if you want to avoid some very lengthy lines.  Early morning also means the sun is over the lake so is not too bad from the point of view of grabbing shots away from the lake.  All of this is helped if the windows are clean which, sadly, they weren’t this time but what can you do?

A more recent feature of the Skydeck is the glass cubes that extend out over the Wacker Drive side of the building.  Having the chance to stand over the street below is amusing to lots of people and a little scary to others.  A school party of teenage girls resulted in lots of squealing but I guess that is par for the course.

It is fun to see how people react to the chance to stand in space.  Most people are with others and you get a lot of interacting.  Others take it as a lonesome moment and just look out.  You have to make the most of the moment since the next group will be with you before too long!

Floral Fun

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This one isn’t a complicated post.  It is just some flowers really!  We had visitors for the weekend and were out wandering around the city.  The sun was out and so were plenty of flowers.  I don’t claim these flowers sprouted perfectly for me.  Usually someone has brought them in and transplanted them into the planters to make the place always look good.  However, some of them were actually growing where we saw them.

Anyway, I am not really a flower shooter but I was pleased to see them and thought I would grab a few shots.  No-one is going to be gasping over their brilliance but who cares?  They were pretty and the sun was out so what is there to worry about?

Skating Action

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Some time last year I wrote a blog post about photographing some guys jumping bikes in a park here in Chicago.  If you want to check that out, this is the post.  I had been inspired by a great book by Syl Arena on flash photography and what can be achieved to freeze fast action and to add drama to the shots.  This has also got me interested in trying another sport, skating (the skateboard variety, not ice).  They are a couple of skate parks along Lakeshore Drive in Chicago, one north of us and one south.  I had never before managed to time it right to get to one of them but finally I have done it.

I got the park and a few people were skating around.  I watched for a while to see who was a more comfortable skater before asking whether anyone would let me take their picture.  One guy, Konrad, was kind of okay with the idea but seemed a bit skeptical.  Most other people were not keen.  Konrad had one location he had been making some good moves on so we set up there.  We grabbed a few shots from different angles with me mainly using a single light triggered by cable rather than IR.  This is tough stuff to do so you can’t just have them do it over again until you are happy.  They get worn out.

We grabbed a few shots and then Konrad went off to skate some other parts of the park.  When I got back, the shots were not too bad.  The use of a single light was not ideal as, with the deck in front you get quite a shadow cast.  Also, it reflected strongly which tended to limit the light on him.  Two lights will definitely be better.  Fortunately, a little work in Lightroom managed to enhance the balance on him a bit.  A first time out and not too bad.  Plenty to improve on next time though.

Marina City

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When you live in a city that has a bunch of recognizable landmarks, you start out by taking a lot of pictures of them.  After a while, you figure that you have done all of that and move on.  However, you have never done everything you could and so, every once in a while, it is worth trying again with something familiar in case you come up with something new.

So it has proved to be with Marina City.  These two towers (also colloquially known as the corn cobs) are just a couple of blocks from where we live.  When we first moved here I certainly shot them a lot.  Recently, I was wandering back along the river and decided to pay them a quick visit.  I was going for a couple of shots when I got there.  One is to crop in close on the structures to turn them into something more abstract.  The other was to get between them and shoot straight up to turn them into something different.

I had a wide angle zoom and a fish-eye with me, both of which can have advantages with these types of shots.  The access to the buildings is very good so I had a lot of opportunity to mess around with variations on the theme.  In the end, the ones you see here are some of those that I liked the most from the effort.  I shall now ponder for a while whether there is something different I should try next time.

What Animals Are in Your Local Park?

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With a lovely spring weekend day, the city provides a lot of opportunities to hang out and enjoy yourself.  One of these is Lincoln Park.  Not a long walk from us but certainly a quicker bus ride gets you to the park.  It is amazing how quickly the spring transformation is underway.  The trees are rapidly filling out with leaves and the wildlife is also making itself obvious.  There are certainly worse places to be on a weekend.

If you want to ramp up the wildlife, the park also has the zoo which is free to visit.  It had been a while since we went there so we decided to take a look around.  Since you can wander in and out at will, you don’t always end up looking at everything and this time was no exception.  We did visit the big apes which is always a great experience.  Taking in the bats was something I hadn’t done for a while as well.

We could have looked at more but I had a strong urge to find some lunch so instead we went exploring of a different kind.  Maybe not as difficult as living in the wild but the results were certainly good.