fourpointedstar

This image may be my favorite image that I captured on our Blue Line Photo Walk; I love the fact that you can wander around this image and see so many scenes, each one partially obscured by another scene. For me, the perfect detail is the two men chatting at the counter at the back of the repair shop.

As this biker rolled up, the chorus from Nirvana’s “Heart Shaped Box” blasted from his bluetooth speaker; I’m not certain that you could be more cool that this dude.  I crossed the street in front of him, and I gave him a sleight nod of my head to let him know that I felt his aura, and as I lifted my camera up to capture the image, he gave me just the edge of a smile to let me know that he knows that he’s worth of being photographed.

I ended up taking more than a handful of photos of the derelict (and possibly being refurbished?) Congress Theater, but of all of the images, I love this one the most.  The old run down theater locked behind a pad lock and gate, held back from the public and waiting for someone to find the right key.

About 10 minutes earlier, another bus passed by and as it passed I noticed the reflection of the brickwork and the trees.  I understand why this happens, but it kinda hurts my brain to realize that the bus has a bit of motion blur, but the reflection does not – making it a fantastic canvas.

I’ve taken this type of photo so many times – a building’s reflection distorted in the windows of another building.  The rough idea of the reflection is visible, but only at a conceptual level; almost like a third grader was tasked with cutting 50 straight lines as fast as they can without using a ruler.

As I stood waiting for fellow photo walkers to arrive, I could see the corner of the McDonald’s sign reflected in the triangular building across the street.  Moving to the left allowed the entire sign to be displayed in their windows; a great way to start a street photography photo walk.

Leaving at the end of a trip is always sad and happy; I’m typically glad to head back to my home and my routine, but sad to leave the destination and certain that I would love to spend a day or two more there!  The photo walk in Chinatown was hot and humid, but I was sad the day was over and that we were headed home.

I love the beauty and fluidity of Chinese characters; in English, signs are typically written in block letters, but the majority of the text through Chinatown is written in a script that I would describe as “cursive”.

The photographer and cosplayer knew the photo that they wanted; they captured 3 photos and disappeared back into the crowd.  But it reminded me of regular life, I do not know what character she was portraying, or what the backstory was, but for a brief moment I noticed her existence.  This happens with everyone, we rarely know their story or the character they are portraying, and they move on through our life so quickly. 

I’m not even sure where the puddles came from that day – it was over 90°F / 32.2°C out – but the puddles made for fun reflections.  A couple of other photographers on the walk really used them to their advantage, I just used them as an abstract framing device.

Pardon me if I’ve photographed this structure before, but I’m obligated to capture an image each time that I visit Chinatown! I do need to remember to bring a wider lens next time that I visit though; I would love to capture the staircase as the border of the photo.

As I composed this image, I thought it would be funny to have the red characters coming “out” of the dragon’s mouth like they were flames; I had a little inside chuckle as I composed the image at my own ingenuity.  Then some pedestrians were reading the inscription on the statue, so I waited – just as they walked away the people with the traditional hats walked by.  The moral of the story: sometimes you should let people read about the statue so that you can get a better image!

The traditional architecture shown throughout Chinatown in Chicago is incredibly repetitious.  Repeating patterns and colors flow throughout each structure, and I enjoyed attempting to compose images that eliminated the power lines and non-traditional structures, yet still displayed the beauty and form.

I try to lead a photo walk monthly, but… well, life gets in the way.  In late July, we had 7 people on our Chinatown walk, and I wasn’t sure what I would photograph on the trip.  This was one of the first photos that I took, something about the Slurp Slurp made me smile. 🙂 

When we started our photo walk, I wanted to capture images that I may not normally see or look for. The stop light shadow immediately grabbed my attention, but I will admit that my second photo, the reflection, is the type of photo that I have taken many times over.

There are some photos that I like that I don’t want to “define” why; the crosses photo fits in that category – I love the symmetry and texture of the image.  As we walked along Spring Street, I saw my shadow walking along the brick but it took me a bit to capture the right photo since normally my elbow would be extending from my head when I click the shutter button.

I loved the way the evening light played with the reddish bricks on the steeple, but when I saw the shadows on the RR Donnelly building? The way the straight shadow played across the rectangular windows and contrasted with the darkness of the second building’s window reflection? That was simply too good to pass up!

We crossed the street at Dexter for the express purpose of the church photo; it was obvious to me that the street lamp and raised bricks were a perfect composition.  But I spent quite a bit of time working on the exact composition for the vines; I wanted to keep the sparse vines to the right, but the light pointed to the left … and I ended up with a photo that I wouldn’t normally take that I really enjoy.

I love looking for interesting reflections in windows; the window offers a perfect frame and typically distorts the view. Recently though, I’ve been drawn to photos of reflections in puddles; a very similar concept, but a different and less predictable frame and outcome.

My friend and I took a nice slow walk around one of Elgin’s historic neighborhoods. Our meandering path matched our meandering conversation as we talked about life and pressed our shutter buttons. I remarked to him “I’m just not really feeling it”, but I continued to capture interesting images. As I tried to pick 7 images to post for this week, they all seemed to be missing something; but as pairs of photos?

The strong red-ish light of the sun played strongly across each scene, but was most evident on the brick buildings leading to the wonderful hues in these photos.