fourpointedstar

One of my favorite things to do in the winter in Chicago is to visit one of the conservatories to see the plants and blossoms. The splash of color does wonders to invigorate my spirit.
But then I tend to create monochrome images out of my trips because I love the textures.

Not every image needs to be award winning; I enjoy looking for abstract compositions, and I’ve photographed this type of plant quite a few times and rarely gotten an image that I liked.  But I really like this image – award winning to me.

I have some friends who will bring along spray bottles to add water drops to plants to make the image pop, but for this flower, the staff at the conservatory did the work for me!

Sometimes a photo is already lined up for you, like this blossom. I did have to stand on my tiptoes to capture the image with the green leaf behind the red blossom, and then take the photo several times in order to get the pistil in focus.

I walked right past this plant while complaining that I hadn’t taken enough photos of blossoms. Sarah kindly pointed out that the purple blossoms were almost radiant; I’d walked right past the plant because most of the blossoms were wilted and past their prime. The yellow stamen are almost creepy.

I love seeing other people’s photos, and recently I saw a photo of a single cactus blossom from a photographer that was perfect and beautiful. I don’t like my image quite as much as theirs, but this cute blossom was absolutely perfect for the photograph.

The tiny blossoms on this cactus were the perfect cluster of beauty for my macro lens. The sad thing about macro photos is that I have no clue what the remainder of the plant looks like now.

I love visiting an indoor garden like Chicago’s conservatories in the winter. The garden’s colors and vibrance are refreshing against the backdrop of the grey and browns of our winters.

I don’t ever shy away from editing an image from cropping to color correction to contrast; I almost never show an image before editing.

But every once in a while a scene presents itself that needs no editing, like this one. I did crop this, my lens simply didn’t have the reach for the crop that I wanted; and of course, I changed it to black & white. Some won’t like this image, even more will find an aspect to critique; and that’s fine, after all art is subjective.

I love converting photos of ferns to monochrome images; they’re almost monochromatic already, simply shades of green. However, in their full color, you can enjoy the yellow and red shades within the greens, as well as the brown details in the fibers and stems. For this curly image, I really enjoyed the peach-fuzz underneath the plant that you wouldn’t normally see.

One of the beauties of nature is the joy of looking closer. Not only does this fern remind me of nature’s zipper, the closer that you look at the plant, the more you can see and learn; the strands on the branch, the spots and texture on the fronds as well as the serration on the edges of the branches.

Growing up, my Mom always had Christmas cactus, and if I remember the original plant may have come from her brother had quite the green thumb. I definitely remember playing football in the house with my brother and knocking the plant over and the blossoms falling off and KNOWING that we were in so much trouble.

But when I told my parents that Sarah and I were moving in together, my Mom gave Sarah a cutting of the Christmas cactus as a “home warming gift”.

There is not much to say about this image; I love its simple composition.

I guess I’ve never really paid attention to the spines on various cactus plants, but I have definitely never noticed a cactus’s spines that are quite as curvy as this cactus’s are! I love the almost “barrier” like feel to the repeating leaves, if that’s what you would call them, and the repeating pattern makes me wonder if there’s a mathematical system behind their arrangement.

Photographing ferns is a bit challenging; almost like a monochrome image. There isn’t a flower for color or the contrast of bark and leaves; but while a fern may lack in color and contrast, it excels at texture and shape. I love the weave and repetition of these leaves!

In today’s language, this house belongs to a one-percent-er, but I have a hard time feeling jealous of them. After all, if I had millions (or billions), I’d want a home in that exact spot as well.

It probably goes without saying, but you can’t go very far in Seattle without seeing Mount Ranier. When we took the tour of the harbor the sun was setting and illuminating the snow cap.

Sometime we’ll make it back to Alpental in the spring, when there are several veil falls along the mountains… This is the view looking off of the bridge from the parking lot the resort lodge. I would estimate that it’s a 30foot drop and then the most beautiful and hidden stream you can imagine.

The hike down to see Snoqualmie Falls is not for the faint of heart, but you can park at the lower parking lot too. The views down in the canyon are worth the hike though! Just this segment of river would be noteworthy anywhere in the midwest, but in Washington? Just part of a minor river’s path.

As I looked over the other side of the bridge (from the previous photo), the colors and detail in the shoreline struck me. The water was so clear that it felt like you could see dozens of feet into the river. I love the balance of shoreline, saturated colors, underwater cliff, and the reflection of the forest in this image.

Sarah pointed out this view. We passed by this vantage point on the way west that day, so when we returned east, she asked me to photograph this portion of the river. I wish that I could have captured a train on the bridge, but that would almost ruin the view.

Of course the series of waterfalls was my main focus when we stopped at Deception Falls Park, but the view downstream was equally gorgeous. The stream disappeared into the forest and fog and the small island added that extra touch of natural beauty. The stream’s soft green coloring and the damp air added to the mystical feelings that day.

As you fly over the midwest, you can see a patchwork of farmland, roads, and rivers creating right angles and natural curves across the earth. Perhaps that’s why I enjoy this photo so much, it reminds me of the mixture of manmade and natural shapes. The weathered run off from the rivets just adds a little pizazz too.

As the sun faded in and out of the cloud cover throughout our walk around the museum, the colors of the metal would change. The building would reflect the blues, yellows, and greys in the sky and then my Sony would attempt to record those colors as photographs. As I was editing the images, I found so many fun and fantastic color combinations; in this image, you can see the golds, coppers, and silvers as well as the grey, blue, and yellow in the clouds.

I struggled with editing this image. I love the composition, but getting the dark and light not too dark and not too light was a challenge; and I still don’t think I’ve got it right. The light parts just aren’t light enough, and I’ve always struggled with getting monochrome images to have nice lighter parts of the image without having just a texture-less white space. Each photograph teaches us a lesson and often that lesson is “you have a lot more to learn.”

I love the warble of reflected lines in glass, but it brought a smile to my face to discover the same thing happens with metals. The straight lines of the fantastic red-ish hues stand out against the reflected copper lines. I’ve photographed this exact phenomena in many windows but finding it present in steel was simply wonderful.

Unlike most of Frank Ghery’s most famous buildings, the Museum of Pop Culture is not simply shades of shimmering silver. The building has 5 or 6 unique segments in different colors, each segment with his signature curves and waves. Shadows and reflections wandered across each curve and surface, combining to form a lasting smile across my face.

This pigeon has decided that sitting on the top of this metal cloud is a great way to interrupt my photo. At first I was annoyed, but now I enjoy the tiny interruption – almost like it’s Monty Python’s French Taunter in the castle castle threatening “I blow my nose at you!”

Ghery’s architectural works stand out in any skyline. The multiple colors, textures, and waves on the Museum of Pop Culture exhibit a wonderful feast of the eyes. While many of his buildings and designs are similar to the Pritzker Pavilion here in Chicago – mostly uniform in color – the Seattle design has multiple treatments and colors for the sheet metal. As we walked around the exterior, I found dozens and perhaps hundreds of potential abstracts, and after editing, here are a few that stood out as spectacular.

As you walk away from the Seattle Space Needle, you’re treated to the chrome and copper variations in the anodized metal. The waves and variations reminded me of a patchwork quilt that has been tossed on the couch; almost as if the wind had blown the building into that particular spot in Seattle’s downtown.

I believe that Kristen has attended three of our Elgin photo walks; she has a great eye and great ideas.  She originally lined this photo up and spent her time capturing the scene with the Water Tower centered – and during that time, a dozen vehicles passed by interrupting her photos.  Then when I took my turn with the same location, I had to wait for several minutes to get my first car for the light trails that I wanted to capture.  I finally did capture an ambulance on Michigan Avenue (in the back), and three vehicles on Tower Court in the foreground.

I wonder if the Allerton Hotel felt the eerie presence of the observation deck on that cold and foggy night. The top of the John Hancock Tower almost disappears into the fog and mist leaving the blue and white lights as the only reminder of the dark obelisk.

I enjoy the rotating art displays in the courtyard between the Tribune Tower and the Apple Store on Michigan Avenue. Seeing “hope” in such a central point of the city is a wonderful reminder of something that we have to work at, to hope for a better future.
And of course, I had to shoot some light trails on any walk through Chicago!

On a previous photo walk (which was also rainy), Arnaldo took a few photos of reflections in the water; and as I waited for the December photo walk to begin, I noticed this perfect reflection. I considered asking someone to step in the puddle, but decided that the Wrigley and InterContinental buildings were a great composition.

The day was rainy, but the soldiers still stood guard. With the rainy concrete and the interior lights providing a warm glow, the entrance to The Wrigley Building looked perfectly festive and the marble facade added to the grandeur.

When I attended the Lincoln Park Zoo Holiday Lights exhibit, I wanted to create something more than a record of someone else’s artwork. In the past, I have captured images that combined the lights with camera motion, and I wanted to take what I have learned in the past and apply it to this year’s visit. This abstracted tree gave me the opportunity to see the image as something more than “a tree wrapped in green lights”.

There’s something magical about the hustle and bustle of early December. The busyness but excitement for the celebrations to come; spending time with family, fewer work obligations, and parties. Watching the joy of the people skating in Millennium Park still brings a smile over a month later.

The tiny streams that pass through the canyons communicate a powerful message – little actions over and over for a long time yield huge results. The daily trickle of water combined with the spring floods are a lot like our daily lives … for better or worse.