Cloud gate

Cloud gate

Pulling out another shot from my trip to Chicago. This is of an art object called Cloud Gate. It is a giant bean shaped object made from highly polished steel plates. You can’t see the seams at all where the plates meet except for when you go underneath where they left the seams on purpose. It was pretty neat. Brandon has a cool shot of it here. There was a orchestra playing in front of it entertaining what looked like a high brow dinner party.

Board here

Board here

Hey…I need some opinions. What are your feelings about the rollover section on the main image? I liked it at first, now I’m not sure. I keep wavering back and forth. Please chime in with your opinion! :) Thanks.

Morning walk

Morning walk

I got up really early the other morning with the intention of getting some good sunrise shots. I wandered around for a couple of hours as the sun was coming up and took a bunch of pictures. I think there’s one other shot that I actually cared for all the rest looked like junk. Oh well…guess that’s how it goes.

Pixelpost Tweaks

I’ve been using Pixelpost to host my Photoblog. Pixelpost is an excellent application and has a ton of excellent features. I found there were some things that I wanted it to do that weren’t there so I tweaked it and some other people’s stuff and came up with some of my own.

Lens

The first tweak is a modification of James Owens’ Most Commented addon. I wanted to show my favorites of my own work on my about page. So I made the My Favorites Addon..
The second tweak is the ability to have a different background color with each post. Check out my Background Color Changer modification for details.
The last tweak is my template for the site. Pixelpost basically is able to be skinned. You can check out the details here.

Since I found Serenity….

I was in Chicago a few weeks back and I stayed at my brother’s while I was there. One morning while Brandon was snoozing away I looked through his DVD collection and found the Firefly TV series DVD. I had heard about the movie Serenity that was to be coming out and knew it was based on a short-lived series called Firefly. The trailer for Serenity looked good, but I wasn’t to sure. So while Brandon slept off our many hours of walking I popped it in and watched the pilot for the series.
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I was hooked. It was good. I wasn’t sure at first, it seemed like it was going to be another Fox goofy sci-fi no-need-to-watch TV show. My wife will confirm that I hate, hate, hate and again hate watching TV shows or movies on TV. I just can’t deal with what I’m watching being broken up by idiotic comercials for junk that I don’t care about. I watch almost no TV and what I do watch is from recordings made using Windows Media Center on a PC in my living room. So when those retarded comercials come on I can hit the fast forward or skip 30 seconds button! Whoo hoo.

Anyways, I proceeded to watch all 14 episodes during the two weeks before Serenity came out and I loved every one of them. There is some stuff they could have left out from a cleanliness (sex, language etc.) standpoint. But overall it’s awesome. Serenity the movie is no exception. Wow! Jaw dropping great effects, good acting, lots of humor and some surprises if you watched the series. My brother-in-law has never seen the series and he loved the show so it does appeal to people who haven’t seen the series. Go see it! ps. If you are curious about the title of the post watch the show and you’ll know what’s up.

Crazy clouds

Crazy clouds

I don’t know about you but I never get tired of these dramatic cloud shots. Technically they aren’t all that complicated. Take a picture on just about any day where there’s a decent amount of clouds. They don’t have to be very dramatic at all. The original of this shot is nothing like what I ended up with (which some might disagree with also.) Take it into photoshop and goto image/adjustments/auto level. I normally don’t care for auto leveling shots, but here it works to bring about those dramatic colors. Then hit ctrl-j (not sure of the command for you Mac users just duplicate the main layer) change the top layer’s blending mode to overlay and back it off with the opacity of the layer as needed. I took mine into Neat Image to remove some noise and smooth it out some. There you have it…crazy apocolyptic like clouds in the sky.

In the beginning…

In the beginning...

I’ve read alot of books in my life. Some on photography (I certainly need to read more of these.) Some on computers. Some fiction. Some non-fiction. But this is the book I’ve read the most and continue to turn to. It’ll change your life if you let it.

There was a discussion the other day on Chromasia about photography as either being or not being an art. A comment was made that art is only art if it “challenges ideas and preconceptions.” Like David from Chromasia said “I think this is an overly restrictive and highbrow definition…” But, isn’t that something to attempt to do from time to time? To challenge a person…to elicite some response? Sometimes it’s just a “hmmm” or maybe a “wow.”

I guess my point is, what does this photograph elicite in you? Maybe it’s joy and comfort. Maybe it’s anger or pitty. The book itself is nothing but ink and paper. But, the message that the ink conveys demands a response.

Pier

Pier

Ok, back to Chicago scenery. Hopefully I can pick up my camera and shoot something new in the next couple of days. I have been fairly lazy as far as shooting because I took so many shots during my trip to Chicago. Nothing extrodinary about this one, but it just sticks out to me for some strange reason above the other shots I have prepared.

Sand time

Sand time

Not much to say here. Saw this little girl playing by one of the beaches we visited along lake Michigan in Chicago. I couldn’t decide whether I liked the color version or monochrome version better. I keep leaning towards color, what do you think?

Update: Monochrome seems to be winning out, so I swapped them. :) Thanks for the comments!

Navy Pier

Navy Pier

Continuing with shots from my trip to Chicago. This is a combination of two shots down the right side of the Navy Pier in Chicago. The shots together end up unbalanced, but I wanted to show you some more of Chicago, plus you can see to the far right the lighthouse from a previous shot. This is the same section of walkway, although several hundred feet to the right, that I shot the lighthouse so you get an idea as to how far away from it I was.

The Navy Pier is an interesting place. It’s a section of land that jutts out into lake Michigan and down the right side of it (as you are facing lake Michigan) there are shops and restaurants and many boats docked. Along the top is a large carousel, mini golf and other attractions.

It’s particularly neat when you get out to the farthest point and you are looking out into the lake. It’s a great place to just take a seat and watch the birds and water and take it all in. Very peaceful and soothing. Every now and then they’ll have a band playing Jazz or some type of music out near the end as well. It’s one of my favorite places to visit in Chicago.

Fast subway

Fast subway

The subway in Chicago is superfast! :) We’ve become pro’s at getting around Chicago during our several trips there. Using the buses and subway you can get around pretty well.

Some facts about the transit system: CTA has approximately 2,000 buses that operate over 152 routes and 2,273 route miles. Buses provide about 1 million passenger trips a day and serve more than 12,000 posted bus stops. CTA’s 1,190 rapid transit cars operate over seven routes and 222 miles of track. CTA trains provide about 500,000 customer trips each day and serve 144 stations.

There was a little bit of a scare while we were in Chicago this last time. One of the Metra trains, which are kinda like the subway but faster with less stops, derailed and a couple of people died. We weren’t on any of the Metra trains this time, but the last time we were there we had jumped on one of them.

UPDATE: Thanks to all who voted for me on Photofriday. I got a noteworthy for the Blur competition. Thanks again!

Fourth Presbyterian Church

Fourth Presbyterian Church

This is one of the outside hallways in the Fourth Presbyterian Church in downtown Chicago. It was quite interesting to be walking along the hustle and bustle of Michigan avenue amongst what seemed like a million or more people and then to step off to the side into the courtyard next to this church. It suddenly became quiet and peaceful. The inside of this Church was quite impressive and grand. The Church was built in 1914 following the destruction of their previous worship location by the great Chicago fire and under went restoration and recreation that finished in 1995. It now sits in the middle of the great shopping known as the “Magnificent Mile.”

Happy day

Happy day

As we walked the downtown area of Chicago I saw at least 4 newlywed couples. This one struck me because of the smile on the bride’s face. I’m not much of a romantic, but these two seemed extremely happy. Hopefully that lasts in their marriage. Too many people take marriage and the family so haphazzardly.

Michigan lake kiss

Michigan lake kiss

It’s on the edge of invading these total stranger’s privacy, but I saw Brandon’s picture and had to put up mine! :) We got back from Chicago yesturday and I haven’t had time to process many pictures. I took enough to keep me busy for a month. Not that they are all that good, but I like several of them. You might disagree, but that’s your right!

Iron gate

Iron gate

I’m out of town for a couple of days, so if I don’t get back to you quickly that’s the reason! I’m in Chicago for business and a couple of days of non-business! Hopefully I can return with some good shots.

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