All in Architecture
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Given what a delightful day it was, I found it odd to stumble across these rather sinister looking bottles, high on a windowsill. The first feature I saw was the white light, but then I noticed that the bottles were casting a rather large and sinister shadow. It was the setting sun that provided an intense source of light.
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If you are looking for somewhere over the rainbow in Chicago, walk along the Riverwalk toward the Lake Shore Drive Bridge. Centennial Fountain is located on the north side of the river. Dedicated in 1989, the fountain commemerates the 100th anniversary of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago.
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As you walked into the old section of the Art of Institute of Chicago, you pass a grand staircase. On the first landing is a bronze sculpture of a torso created by Roussillon-born sculpturer Aristide Maillol in 1906. It is entitled Enchanted Action. The white light in the staircase always tickles down to the toes, and yet the torso has no toes to tickle.
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Several years back, Nutella was the rage on college campuses. The little single serving packets were replacing salt, sugar, and butter packets in college cafeterias, with administrators being forced to keep a sharp eye on students loading pockets, purses, and backpacks with dozens of those packets filled with delicious chocolate hazelnut goo.
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Architect Renzo Piano's Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago has an expansive hallway that leads from Monroe on the wing's north side to the older sections of the museum on the south. It is a grand space, with white walls and skylights, providing beautiful natural lighting. People always look so elegant in this space, particularly when seated on the benches that line the walkway.
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Chicago is known for the sound of the electric blues, but long before Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Little Walter, and all the others plugged in, Chicago was an industrial center, home to foundries, transportation hubs, and animals headed through shuts to their slaughter. In the words of Carl Sandburg, the City of Broad Shoulders. Emblematic of those shoulders are 27 or so bridges that tie one side of the Chicago River with the other.
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There is a channel that leads into the Diversey Motorboat Harbor in Lincoln Park. On the south side of that channel is the tiered landing pictured here, with just a few trees. I've walked past it several hundred times over the years. Yet, its simplicity continues to fascinate.
It was a lovely afternoon to experiment with infrared photography. Yes, unlike Instagram, this photograph was created in camera using a camera that had had its Beyer filter removed.
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The Elks National Memorial located just to the west of the north end of Lincoln Park is a reminder of the sacrifice of the many Americans who fought and died in World War I. Planning for the memorial began two years after the war ended in 1918. The organization selected New York architect Egerton Swarthout's design.
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I went out this afternoon looking for a pair of shoes. I decided to travel light, so I took my Leica M with the 12mm Voightlander wide angle lenses mounted, with a 28mm and a 90mm lenses in a small bag. 12mm equals insanity. You either have to be extremely close or the object needs to be very large--although I did find an exception to that rule. By day's end, I had some nice photographs, but no shoes.
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I decided to take a little walk today. Down Roscoe, down Broadway, down Clark, down Wells, down Franklin, and arrive three hours later in back of the Merchandise Mart.
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Richard Misrach is one of my favorite photographers. He undertook a three-year project in which he photographed the Golden Gate Bridge from the same vantage point from his front porch, located somewhere in the vicinity of Berkley. Misrach was demonstrating that photography is often more about the light and the weather conditions than the specific subject matter.
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Fermi Labs is located in Batavia, Illinois, about 40 miles west of Chicago. Sited on prairie land, the lab explores the "mysteries of matter, energy, space, and time," putting it in the same business as the late Leon Russell, who was the Master of Space and Time. And you know, there isn't really much difference between physics and music, its all about gaps in space, timing, acceleration, and deceleration.
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The sun continued to burn with intensity as the afternoon turned into twilight, spaying the the Chicago River with intense light. It was so intense that it lit the underside of the bridges, which is what caught my attention. You gotta love the clouds and that deep blue sky.
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The afternoon light was magnificent. The shadows finally came out after almost 10 days of unrelenting gray and white skies, with lots of fog and rain. What can you say? It's a geometric progression on the Chicago River. Simple, but powerful.
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Here is one more from Thursday afternoon's excursions. The colors are gorgeous, if I don't say so myself. That the Fuji GFX 50s at work, handheld medium format.
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Not exactly the sunniest day, but pretty good considering that the Tribune 10-day forecast predicted clouds and rain for the next ten days. When I left the house, the temperature was in the mid-60s.
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I am not a big fan of photographs that feature statues, particularly of historical figures in representational style. Yet, I have always enjoyed the superhuman statue honoring the German philosopher and writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) that sits at the north end of Lincoln Park, with two Mies van der Rohe apartments serving as the backdrop.
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I thought I might go to a jazz concert tonight, but I didn't have the energy, so I hopped on the 151 and headed to North Pond. I took 68 exposures over a 2 hour period without once moving my tripod. This is the second to the last photograph of the session.
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Soon the leaves will return to the trees, which will make this a particularly interesting scene for infrared film. Shot from the bridge over the lagoon just southeast of Cafe Brauer, this photograph is pretty standard fare for me.
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March 13, 2017. Chicago had its first snowstorm of 2017. Up until today, there hadn't even been a flurry. Unfortunately, the storm was relatively minor, dropping somewhere between 6" and 12" inches. By rush hour, the roads were clear, but the clouds still blanketed the sky with white. No contrast and no falling snow: The city just doesn't look that great, which is why I headed to Lincoln Park.
