Week 10, March 10-16, 2019 – Colorful Nature
March 16th, 2019
For the past 8 years, I’ve used themes for each week of my images: a location, an event, or simply an idea. But early in December, as I was reviewing my images from Warren Dunes, I decided to challenge myself with posting an entire month’s worth of themed images.
Around the same time, I was marveling at the simplicity of great black and white images: they can’t rely on colors to give life and interest to the image, leaving the photographer with only texture and composition. I decided that I would post 28 black and white images in the month of February, and that I would also challenge myself to shooting and editing with black and white images in mind.
As part of my black & white month, I wanted to feature some photos of cactus. I’ve visited several botanic gardens and conservatories, but hadn’t ever spent the time and focus needed to properly capture cactus. So, on a cold Sunday in January, I drove down to Lincoln Park, and upon arriving, realized that I’d left my Nikon at home. After driving home and back, I walked into the Lincoln Park Conservatory, only to discover that they don’t have a cactus room – some days just don’t work out how you plan.
So, instead of cactus, I took photos of plants that I thought would work great in black & white…and someday, I’ll actually take a trip to photograph cactus.
For the second full week of Black & White February, I decided to follow up on an idea that I’d had for a few months – to shoot light trails in Elgin. I enjoy capturing long exposures, but the added challenge of capturing light trails in downtown Elgin instead of Chicago (where there’s more traffic) seemed challenging.
While we were out in the bitter cold for the January Lunar Eclipse, I realized that Elgin’s parking garages would make a great vantage point for some light trail images. I’d taken images from the top of the Spring Street garage, in fact, I’ve led photo walks in downtown Elgin and used the Spring Street garage as a vantage point.
However, I decided to add one more aspect to the week’s photos: I would attempt to shoot 7 images and capture 7 photos that I was proud of…I didn’t quite make it. Capturing light trails of traffic when there’s very little traffic turned out to be a bit more challenging than I expected. But I took 14 images, from 6 vantage points, and captured 7 images that I’m proud of.
In mid-December, I drove past the Indiana Dunes and stopped and took the first image; around this time, I’d decided that February would be all black & white images – more on that at the end of the month. I invited a photographer friend to come along on a dedicated trip back to the dunes and took photos with the intention of creating a week’s worth of black & white images.
We had a fantastic day of photography and conversation, and I ended up with quite a few more than 7 images and some images with fantastic texture and composition.
Goodness, it was cold. We stood on a parking garage roof in Elgin for 2 hours, stepping back into our cars in between photos to allow the soles of our feet to warm back up. Luckily, the lunar eclipse didn’t happen during the “Polar Vortex” (that was the next week), but it was only 4° F (-15.5° C), and being 5 levels up meant there was nothing blocking the wind.
However, unlike the 2015 Lunar Eclipse and the 2017 Solar Eclipse, there wasn’t cloud cover. I didn’t stay for the entire eclipse, but I’m pretty happy with the images that I did capture.
