Abstracts and Architecture Of Chicago
Back in October, I joined up with Justin Reznick for a photography tour of Chicago. This city is the birthplace of the skyscraper and is filled with incredible architectural gems. After the great fire in 1871, Chicago had to start from scratch, and aimed for the most ambitious buildings of its time. This started a movement to push boundaries and be on the forefront of architecture which hasn’t slowed down, even to this day. The first skyscraper we visited was to the top of the 83-story Aon Tower. Most days, the top floor is not open to the public, but for a few days a year, there is an open house where you are allowed to take in the views from the top floor. With a zoom looms, you can isolate on the bridge at Millenium Park and the steel sculpture known as Cloud Gate.
After that, we took a walk along Lake Michigan. It rained a lot the night before, so the Chicago River and Lake Michigan water levels were higher than normal. The water splashing up over some of the walls made for some unique images that you can't always get. The image below was a 3 second exposure used to capture the water flowing back down into Lake Michigan.
Another fun long exposure was in front of the Chicago Theater. In this image, I waited for a bus going southbound on State Street to approach me and then took a 6-second exposure to capture the headlights and taillights going by to give it the blurry effect you see here. There are some unusual buildings in downtown Chicago, and it is a great city to do some abstract photography with the structures. When I first approached the wood sculpture known as the Peoples Gas Education Pavilion at Lincoln Park, I was unsure what photographic appeal it would have. It took me a while to get into this place. However, as I started to take pictures, I started to become entranced with symmetry of these wooden beams overhead.
Even looking up on the balconies of the apartment buildings was mesmerizing to me.
The wavy nature of the modern building known as the Aqua Tower was also fun. It made for some interesting light and patterns as the golden rays of sun hit portions of this apartment building. I love the contrast of the cool and warm tones to this picture!
Chicago architecture is known for Frank Lloyd Wright. While I did not visit his famous home designed in the suburb of Oak Park, I did visit The Rookery Building, Chicago's oldest high-rise. This 1885 Romanesque structure has a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed lobby with a beautiful staircase.
A photography trip to downtown Chicago would not be complete without some urban landscapes of the skyline. We went up to the top of the John Hancock Tower. This picture is looking south down Michigan Avenue.
The three tallest buildings from left to right are the Aon Tower, Trump Tower and the Willis Tower, formerly known as the Sears Tower. The Sears Tower was the tallest building in the world for 25 years once completed in 1973. In 2009, the Willis Group took over the naming rights. The contract for the name of what is still the tallest building in Chicago will be up in 2024. There is some speculation that it could be renamed the United Tower, as United Airlines is the largest tenant inside what is now known as the Willis Tower.
This image was taken from the Chicago Planetarium along a peninsula that juts out into Lake Michigan. The "blue hour" is my favorite time to shoot urban skylines. It is centered about 30 minutes after sunset when the sky has lost has its warm colors from the sun, but the sky hasn't turned black yet. It also works the same way about 30 minutes before sunrise. Our last stop was to the stainless steel bean shaped sculpture known as Cloud Gate. Constructed in the mid 2000s, the sculpture was inspired by liquid mercury and the sculpture's surface reflects and distorts the city's skyline. In my opinion, the best time to photograph Cloud Gate is just before sunrise when there are not many people in front of it.
After the sun came up and some light from the sun began to get underneath the metal structure, the color changed and made for some very interesting abstract images. This one was my favorite Cloud Gate abstract!
At the end of March, I will be visiting another great city to photograph...Washington DC. Hopefully I'll be there in time to catch the cherry blossoms in peak bloom! January snow in the OzarksLately, we have seen some very cold temperatures in my home state of Arkansas and even some snow. Thinking there would at least be some light accumulations somewhere in North Arkansas, I set my alarm clock for 3am Sunday morning and decided where to go next. Looking out the window of my cabin overlooking the Upper Buffalo Wilderness I noticed a small coating of snow on my patio so I decided to head over to nearby Hawksbill Crag at first light.
There wasn't much on the ground, about 1/4 inch, but it was enough to add a little interest to the scene. Hopefully, I can be out there for a bigger snow before winter is over. With another round of snow expected along the Missouri border on the morning of MLK day, I headed to Eureka Springs for some street photography. One of the classic street shots is here next to Basin Park.
As I walked up and down the slippery streets and sidewalks, I zeroed in on this intimate scene just off Spring Street. The snow clinging to some of the bricks made for a nice touch.
Yesterday evening, I returned to the Eureka Springs area to the small community below Beaver Dam called Beaver. The bridge there that goes across the White River is one of the most photogenic bridges in the state. The snow in the foreground added a nice element and having car headlights and taillights go across the bridge is what made this 30 second exposure come alive.
When it is 5 degrees, it is tough to patiently wait for a car to drive over the suspension bridge! However, with some patience, I did get the shot I was looking for. If you look close, you can also see some shallow fog forming on the surface of the river as frigid air flows over the relatively warmer water. In search of snow and icicles, I made the drive to the outskirts of Joplin, Missouri this morning to briefly visit Grand Falls on Shoal Creek...and I do mean brief. When I pulled up to the falls, my car thermometer read -6! Even when I was dressed in long underwear, a thick coat and with gloves, I could only tolerate about 10 minutes of shooting before wanting to return to my car to warm up. Though not tall, Grand Falls is Missouri's largest natural continually flowing waterfall and it kind of resembles a miniature Niagara Falls.
I'm nearly finished with the pictures from my trip to Chicago and I should be posting that blog article later this month. Valley Of Fire State Park: Color vs. Black & White
After my excursion in Utah, I went to Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada. Located about an hour from Las Vegas, I first came here in 2014 on a 1/2 day trip from a company called Pink Jeep Trips. Even though it was a good way to familiarize myself to what is there, the problem I experienced was being there during the middle of the day from about 10am to 2pm...often the worst time of the day for landscape photography. This time I had more freedom to see the park early in the morning as well as late in the afternoon and the dividends paid off.
On one of the evenings, as seen above, I witnessed one of the most incredible glows from a pink sky where the light seemed bounce off the rocks in glorious fashion. This rock with the stripes is known as the Fire Wave. If you are going to take a photo hike to one place in the park, this would be my pick and there are numerous compositions you can take of this stratified rock formation. I also had fun with compositions for rock abstracts and close ups without any sky!
There are numerous small arches and other hidden features in the sandstone here. Here, I placed a wide angle lens inside one of the small arches. It can make the arches seem bigger than they really are.
A photography method that I am beginning to do more of is "focus stacking". In the two pictures immediately above and below, I have combined three images together into one image. In one of the images, I set the focus point a short distance away to get what is close to the camera to be sharp in that picture. In another image, I have the focus point far away to get what is in the distant background in focus. In a third image, the focus is set in between what is near and far. I then make a composition of these three images into one image so that it is sharper from front to back than what it would be if I just took one image alone.
I love the sculpted rocks in these desert washes here. While Valley of Fire State Park is a very colorful place with both red and multicolored rocks, the interesting textures can sometimes make for good black and white images as well. In short, one might convert images to black and white when the light, form, or texture in the scene is more compelling than the hues of the subject matter. Black and white can be a good choice when the color in a photo serves only as a distraction from the message you want the image to convey. In some of the photos I took, I found the somewhat uniform white/dull gray clouds in the sky to be uninteresting. What if we converted the color images to black and white?
Perhaps in some instances, shapes, textures and patterns can play a bigger role than the color? In many cases there is not a right or wrong answer and the end decision is personal and subjective. Below, I have made some more comparisons between color and images I converted to black and white. Which do you prefer?
Slot Canyons Of Southern Utah
In November, I visited Southern Utah which includes some of the most undeveloped land in the Lower 48. In fact, there is one section in Southern Utah known as the Henry Mountains that were the last mountain range to be mapped in the 48 contiguous U.S. states. The southern half of Utah has 5 national parks, but I only visited Zion National Park on this trip. Zion has become one of the top 10 most visited national parks and contains one of the best hikes I have ever been on, known as the Zion Narrows. Here, the Virgin River has carved its way through large sandstone walls.
For this trip, I rented dry pants, canyoneering shoes, and neoprene socks for the numerous water crossings. These, as well as a hiking stick, are very useful...if not essential. The water is quite cold and the rocks on the bottom of the river can be slick. National Geographic Magazine rated it #5 in the Best American Adventures.
I'm not sure how well these pictures do the grand landscape justice but I also had fun taking pictures of the more intimate scenes such as abstracts in the Virgin River.
On the way out of Zion, I did a short hike to the Canyon Overlook. Here is the panorama that I made of the alpenglow just before sunrise.
Now it was on to the town of Escalante, Utah, where there is the vast expanse of land known as the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. There are many scenic and hidden out of the way places and it is known as having some of the best slot canyons in the world. Two places just off the 62 mile long gravel road called "Hole In The Rock Road" are Zebra Canyon and Spooky Canyon. They are very scenic, but also very narrow. They are definitely not places for those who are claustrophobic. Getting through these narrow canyon with a pack of camera gear can be a challenge!
This area is making news now. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was created in 1996 with nearly 1.9 million acres set to be protected. However, an announcement is expected Monday that this area of protection will soon be reduced to 997,490 acres. You can read more about that here. A cloudless sky in the middle of the day is the best time to visit these slot canyons. When the sun is high, the light can enter the canyon and tends to bounce around and create these glows on the walls. Sometimes in the middle of the day, you can see shafts of light that enter the canyon. Throwing dust up in the air can illuminate these light beams.
These two pictures above were taken in Buckskin Gulch along the Utah-Arizona border. It is home to the longest slot canyon in the world, where the canyon is narrow for 12 miles! One last place to see...Kanarra Creek. The slot canyon is not nearly as long but what makes this one unique is the waterfall that flows through it.
Above is a sunrise taken from Highway 12 between Escalante and Boulder, Utah. My next blog post will be from Valley Of Fire State Park in Nevada. Two visits to Old Main
Old Main, on the campus of the University of Arkansas, could be the most photographed building in Arkansas. Built in 1875, it is also the oldest building on campus. On Halloween morning, I was expecting some nice color in the sky for dawn. With clear skies on the eastern horizon and some high clouds overhead, it indeed happened. In the image above, I used a zoom lens but also wanted the composition to be wide enough to get some of pink colors overhead in the sky. I also did a vertical on the South Tower.
Interesting historical footnote: According to WikiPedia, When Bill Clinton gave a speech at the J. William Fulbright statue dedication ceremony, Clinton asked Chancellor John White, "Where is the clock?" 3 years later, Old Main received a clock face. On October 27, 2005, after more than 130 years without a functioning clock face, a specially constructed clock was completed and dedicated on the South Tower. You might have noticed that the North Tower is larger and taller than the South Tower. Old Main was designed by Chicago architect John Mills Van Osdel less than a decade after The Civil War. Legend has it that he designed the North Tower to be larger to remind everyone who won. On the afternoon of Sunday November 5th, I returned to the same spot.
While the sky was not quite as interesting and colorful as what I had seen earlier in the week, it did have a few things going that I didn't have the first time. One, the sun is shining on the structure and the trees to give it a little more interest. Two, the color in the trees was now close to peak. And three, the wind is blowing the flag and adds another element. Each of these are now up for purchase on my Autumn In Arkansas page here. |
