“The New Growth”
February 23rd, 2019
“Rungs on a Ladder”
February 22nd, 2019
Tagged: black & white
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.
One of our favorite father-daughter adventures is traveling to gardens and conservatories. Visiting the indoor gardens (like Nicholas Conservatory in Rockford and Garfield and Lincoln Park Conservatories) and seeing the colorful plants when it’s monochrome outside has become a highlight in the colder months. The girls bring paper, pens, and colored pencils and draw the flowers, ferns and greenery (and I sometimes draw a bit too) while I wander around and take photos.
In October, I led a workshop on “Night photography & Light Painting” at Elgin Area Camera Club. The only problem was the weeks leading up to my workshop; they were rainy, overcast, and generally not friendly to those kinds of photography. Instead, Sarah and I purchased several different kinds of glow sticks and LED lights, and over the next week, we tried all sorts of photo experiments with the new toys.
We enjoyed this so much that even after the workshop night, Sarah and I continued playing with the lights and having fun.
For those that are intesterested, we used regular white Christmas lights, Super Z Outlet Upgraded Light up Foam Sticks (link), Lumistick 12” Jumbo Glow Light Sticks (link), and SurLight 4 Piece Car 72 LED Strip Lights (Amazon no longer lists the items that we bought, but here’s a very similar link).
