Tag Archives: Chicago

Baby Bison

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Regular readers know that I am always keen to catch some photography opportunities with wildlife.  Baby wildlife is even cuter so that is something that will get me to visit a place.  One good wildlife spot but maybe one that is not so obvious unless you know the area is Fermilab.  This is a research facility located west of Chicago.  It does a lot of research in particle physics and it is home to the tevatron, a particle accelerator that was the most powerful in the world until the Large Hadron Collider was built at CERN.  The tevatron has now been shut down.

All of this leads to the fact the facility has a lot of land, most of which is not used for research.  This makes it quite a haven for wildlife and visiting to take a look around is very easy – as long as you stay in the public access areas of course.  Plenty of creatures make their home in the facility.  One extra thing is a farm that raises bison.  I have no idea why this is part of what goes on there but it does.  Breeding season has come and the herd had a few new additions.  We popped along to see them.

Baby bison are very cute whether they are roaming Yellowstone or in a field in Illinois.  We found the herd quite close to the road and so we could get a good view of the youngsters roaming around.  Some were staying close to mum but others were exploring a bit more on their own.  They will be big very quickly so it was nice to catch them at this age.

Stormy Clouds Roll In

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With warm weather comes the chance of storms.  Many times I have noticed the storm as it hit us and wished I had been down on the lakeshore to see the whole thing run in and get some good lightning shots with the city skyline.  This recent occasion I was more aware of the impending deluge and managed to get half of what I was after.

I positioned myself for the storm in good time.  Ahead of it, the clouds rolled in and produced some very impressive formations.  The Midwest is great for “end of the world” skies some times!  Unfortunately, the storm never really got going with the lightning.  We got a few bolts but not very many.  The rumbling from above was unmistakeable but it didn’t produce the photo shots.  I did get one big bolt but it never got dark enough to allow some long exposures so I was always hoping to catch something.

I did leave a second camera running with the video when the clouds rolled in.  I have accelerated the speed of the video to show the clouds in a shorter clip that will hopefully be more acceptable.

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!

Fixing a Broken Bridge

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Living in the city you can get a lot of things happening out of the window.  They can spring up and catch your attention but can equally end before you know it.  This can be a problem when you are trying to decide whether to go out and see what is happening.  One such example happened recently.  I was on the phone when I looked out of the window and saw that the Michigan Avenue bridge over the Chicago River was up and didn’t seem to be showing any sign of coming down.  Finally it did lower but not completely.  This is when the fun started!

One of the Chicago Fire Department’s boats came up to the bridge and then started spraying water on the bridge.  It wasn’t clear at all what was going on.  Some fire trucks also showed up spraying onto the bridge from each end.  I grabbed some shots of this from our windows.  This is the time when you have to make a decision.  Do I grab my stuff and go down to get more shots and risk that it is all over before I get there or do I stay upstairs to see what happens and find out that it goes on for ages and I could easily have been out and shooting for a while?  I have got this decision wrong both ways in the past.  This time I decided to go out and see what I could see.

I didn’t find out what was happening since Chicago’s finest were happy to shout at you for stepping in the wrong place but certainly weren’t going to tell you anything.  I later found out the bridges had expanded in the heat and needed to be cooled down.  I managed to get to a few locations and get some shots before they opened the bridge up again and then lowered it.  This time it went where it was supposed to go and a few cheers came from the crews.

Along with shooting some stills, I also grabbed a bit of video.  While this won’t win any documentary awards, you can get a feel for what was going on.

Glorious Cheating!

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The moon was supposed to be at its biggest recently. I was all ready to head down to the lakefront and get some shots as it rose and the atmosphere magnified it to the greatest extent possible. However, as the afternoon started to wind down, the fog started to roll in. As the sun was setting, the fog banks were wafting between the buildings around us and you couldn’t see the harbor wall let alone the horizon. Oh well, what can you do?

As the evening rolled on, the fog finally cleared out but, by then, it was too late. The moon did appear amongst some of the buildings so, while it didn’t look significantly different to normal, I still decided to get a couple of shots. The problem with this is that the moon is effectively in sunlight while the city is in night. The top picture is the cheat that resulted. Below are the two shots I took next to each other. One was exposed for the buildings and the other was for the moon. A bit of layering and masking in Photoshop was necessary to get the result at the top. I am not a Photoshop wizard and I suspect those that know their stuff would tell me why it is not as well executed as it could be but this was hardly a client job! Just a bit of fun.

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.

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!