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Brickworld 2012

Each year a Lego event called Brickworld takes place just north of Chicago. Last year was the first time I had visited the event and I did write a blog post about it then. If you want to see that, you can find it here. The event is a convention for the Lego artists and they have a number of sessions before the whole thing opens up for the public. That was when we got to take a look.

There are a whole bunch of really cool models that people have made. Some of these are relatively straightforward models of individual subjects while others are far more involved. There are dioramas based on people’s own ideas or themes such as movies. Some are unbelievably complicated. Often there are structures with multiple levels of detail. A medieval castle may look impressive but you might take the top off and find interior rooms fully modeled as well.

Additionally, there was a complex machine that moved little Lego footballs around all sorts of clever contraptions and ultimately back to where they started. It was a never ending path (provided the balls didn’t get stuck or fired out of the capture range of part of the device!). Stills don’t give that device any chance of being appreciated so I tried making a little video of it which is below.

The level of detail in some of these models is amazing. One medieval scene had hundreds of troops and horses set up, all of which had been done for the first time when setting up at the exhibit. Some real effort is involved. The Justin Bieber concert above also involved a lot of minifigs being set up. (It was also surprising to see how many Bieber figs were in different models! What does that mean??)

I will not say any more about the event but below are a bunch of shots of some of the myriad models made. You can see them better than I can describe them.

Marine One

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With the President being a Chicago resident, it is not uncommon for him to be in the city from time to time and a presidential movement means some unusual aircraft. Given all of this, it might be surprising that I have not got any pictures of Air Force One or Marine One since he has been president. Usually I am not aware of his movements until after the event and I can’t always drop everything to go out even if I did know.

Recently, he came home for the weekend. A few friends had mentioned the arrival and departure schedule for Air Force One so I did consider whether to head out. The arrival wasn’t practical but the departure was on a Sunday evening which I could manage. As it happened, I had been out earlier in the day and coming back into the city I saw how bad the traffic was heading out of town and decided that going to O’Hare was going to be no fun at all. Besides, you are always wondering what runway will be sued and might find yourself totally out of position anyway.

Instead, I decided to try and get some pictures of Marine One. It picks him up on the lake-shore south of the city to transfer to O’Hare so might provide an alternative opportunity. I headed down to a location I thought might be good. As I drove Through Grant Park, the two CH-46E Sea Knights that accompany him flew over shortly followed by the VH-3D. I was a bit miffed that I wasn’t a few minutes earlier so I could have got them arriving but never mind.

I found a parking place – no mean feat on a sunny Sunday by the lake – and wandered to the water to find a spot to wait. Then I waited – quite a long time. A temporary flight restriction (TFR) is issued when the President moves. I knew the times it was active but he can go any time in that range. This time it was later in the range. I watched the boats on the lake, the police helicopter checking us all out and the police boats stopping people getting where they weren’t supposed to be.

Finally, I saw the first of the two VH-3Ds take off. Followed by the second and then the Sea Knights, they took off to the south, away from me! This wasn’t promising. At least they might turn left and come back up the lake. No, they turned right and went inland. I was feeling a touch annoyed by this development. Then things got better. They continued their turn and headed right for me. They passed over the lake giving me a great view with the sun behind me. They are a bit shiny which is tricky with the sun but in the end I got the shot. It was worth the wait.

Goodbye Wicket

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I have always had a soft spot for hippos. No idea why but something about them has always interested me. I don’t think it has anything to do with Disney and tutus but you never know what your subconscious is trying to conceal. I don’t even hold it against them that they are the largest killer of humans in the animal kingdom in Africa (I am assuming that bugs and viruses are not included when that stat gets rolled out) and a creature of which you should be very wary. In fact, I love those menacing looking teeth when they yawn!

Therefore, I was rather sad to get an email from the Brookfield Zoo announcing that Wicket, the zoo’s lone hippo has left. We also have a couple of pygmy hippos but Wicket was basically alone and they have decided to move her to another zoo in Colorado so she can be with other animals. They are going to focus the efforts at Brookfield on the pygmy hippos instead.

We were at the zoo a few weeks ago when Chris was visiting. We stopped by to see Wicket. I got some shots of her as she floated – barely breaking the surface in that classic hippo pose. Chris has good memories of her too. On a previous visit she left the pool and walked across the enclosure doing something in quite a dramatic way that led to her being known as a hippoo thereafter!

I hope she likes her new home but I’m sorry to see her go. Have fun Wicket!

WWII Memorial

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The World War II memorial opened a few years ago, after we were no longer living in DC. However, I have been to DC a number of times for various work tasks and have had a chance to visit it before. It is a very large memorial and impresses you with the scale of itself which is probably appropriate given the scale of the conflict and the loss of life it represents.

There are two halves to the memorial, one representing the Pacific conflict and the other the Atlantic. Each of the states are represented on columns around the site and there are several water features. On a hot day, the large expanses of light colored stone can make the temperature a little hard after a while so the running water and the areas of shade can be a welcome respite.

The whole design is very classical in its approach. Whether this is a reflection of the response to previous monuments to conflicts on the Mall or whether it is just what seemed appropriate to those selecting the bidding architects I don’t know. I think it works well and sometimes you don’t have to be different. Since the whole installation is so large, a classical approach seems quite appropriate. It is interesting that it took so long for this memorial to be built but now it is there, it adds an appropriate element to the Mall.

Albert Einstein

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Just across from the Lincoln Memorial is the National Academy of Sciences. On the grounds in the front of the building is a sculpture of Albert Einstein. It is a great sculpture since it is quite sizable and impressive yet is in a style that is very relaxed. It gets a few visitors at a time but isn’t very busy so is a nice distraction from the business of the rest of the Mall. It is also just the right size to encourage you to sit in his lap. I include a picture of Chris doing just that so you can gauge the scale.

Korean War Memorial

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The Korean War Memorial opened around the time I lived in DC in the 90s. I thought it was really cool when I first saw it and I still think it is an impressive monument. It is particularly good to see in the rain since the outfits the soldiers are wearing in the sculpture are big ponchos and, on a dull and wet day, the image of the guys out on patrol is particularly evocative.

It was sunny this time so the effect wasn’t quite the same but the sculptures are still very impressive. I had not remembered the water features around the memorial as much as the sculptures so this was a bit of a discovery for me. The number of visitors was very high so it was hard to get the alone feeling that seems appropriate for the whole place but it is still a very interesting place to visit.

It was not long after Memorial Day when we were there so there were a lot of flowers around the memorial and many personal messages that people had placed. This always adds a personal feel to any memorial.

US Capitol

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The US Capitol topped and tailed our trip to DC. We came into Union Station when we entered the city and so the Capitol is just a short walk away. Chris went and shot some images there while I was in my meeting so I bypassed it when I was trying to catch up with him. This ended up working in my favor.

On our return leg, the weather had improved from the cloudy skies we had started out with and, more importantly, the sun was starting to go down so the light was getting a lot more friendly. Also, a third upside was that there weren’t too many people around any more. Therefore, while we were a bit bushed and also keeping an eye on the time of our train back to the airport, we stopped off and grabbed a few shots of the Capitol before heading home.

Lincoln Memorial

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Continuing the Washington tour, we headed to the Lincoln Memorial. This one isn’t an unfamiliar subject and there is only so much you can do that is new. I was also a little constrained by the time of day we were there but enough of the excuses. I still got a few shots of the memorial as we looked around. It is an impressive structure and very popular. Consequently, there are a lot of people there at almost any time of day.

With so many people there, you are not often going to get the chance to have the scene clear of people so you make the best of it. I figured I would go as wide as possible in order to make the people less prominent in the shots. Whether this really worked or not, I am not sure. I also decided to do a panorama inside the building to try and get the wide shot without the distortion the fish-eye can bring.

That didn’t stop me playing with the fish as well. It certainly provides a different look at some things but the large amount of vertical references really shows the distortion. Still, it was worth a try.

MLK Memorial in DC

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The next few posts will all be related. My nephew, Chris, was staying with us recently and, while he was here, I needed to travel to Washington DC for a meeting. Since Chris had never seen Washington and my meeting would not take up the whole day, I took him along so he could see a bit more of what the country has to offer a visitor. It was only one day but Washington is nice and compact when you are looking at some of the more obvious tourist attractions provided you are ready to walk.

It was an early start and a long day out but we covered a lot of things. Today I shall start with one that was new to me as well. The Dr Martin Luther King Jr memorial is a relatively new addition to the collection of monuments around the Mall area in Washington. I had heard about it and was interested to see how it looked. I was not alone as there were plenty of people walking across to find it.

A number of features were of interest to me. There is a quote from Dr King on one of the stones which says “Out of a mountain of despair, a stone of hope.” I am not familiar with the full quote and its context but the entrance to the memorial is a large rock from which a central section has been extracted. This section is placed further into the memorial and it is on this section that his likeness is sculpted. As I saw the relationship between the two parts, I was quite taken with it.

I know the memorial has not be universally well received but I liked this entrance feature combining with the sculpture, the wall of quotations and the general feel down by the tidal basin. I imagine that it will be a popular place in years to come. The Vietnam Memorial was controversial when it was created and it is now considered iconic so we shall see how time judges this memorial too.

Virginia Air and Space Museum

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Located in Hampton Virginia is the Virginia Air and Space Museum. Hayman and I checked it out as part of our tour of local museums. I had been warned by Liza that everything inside was pretty crowded and she certainly wasn’t wrong about that but more of that later. The museum is a very modern looking facility with glazing at both end walls allowing lots of light inside. That also makes for a few problems with the levels of contrast between parts of the building but I doubt they planned it based on the needs of photographers!

In fact, they really didn’t. The building has a great collection of aircraft. The close proximity to NASA facilities has obviously been helpful in getting access to some pretty unusual exhibits. The Apollo 14 Command Module is on display as is the HARV F/A-18 Hornet, a research F-106 and an XV-6 Kestrel among many other interesting airframes. They even have an MMU from the Space Shuttle program (although getting a shot of it from the moving elevator was tricky). The result of all of these exhibits is that they have to be squeezed in. They are usually suspended from the ceiling which makes them look more dynamic. However, they do tend to overlap a lot.

This isn’t a problem if you are visiting to see everything which is, after all, the purpose of the museum. It does, however, make getting photos a bit more tricky. I ended up using a combination of lenses. A wide angle zoom and a fisheye zoom were the two I chose. The fish is a lens that viewers can tire of quickly but, in this case, it was a case of trying to get unobstructed shots where possible. It also let me try a few odd angles for fun too!

While not a museum I would go back to repeatedly, this was certainly a good place to visit. I might go back one more time with some new ideas about how to shoot certain things but even that might require the cooperation of the management! If you are passing and have a couple of hours, do pay it a visit.