This installment will cover the remaining months, September through December. Outside of two excursions, I didn’t have the chance to do much photography. Those two excursions were fantastic, though.

In September, I signed up for a photography workshop in the Badlands, conducted by the incomparable Tony Sweet. I have been wanting to attend one of his workshop for many years, so I did not pass up this chance. I had been to the Badlands a few times, first, when I was a kid on a family vacation, and then, in July 2005. This workshop was the most in depth exploration of the park I had been involved with. I drove out South Dakota on Sunday, September 4. The workshop officially started Monday evening, so I had the chance to explore the park on my own Monday during the day. The workshop kicked off with photographing sunset at the Hay Butte Overlook. The rest of the week, we were up well before dawn, on the road, and heading to a different spot in the park for sunrise. We would shoot until mid-morning, get something to eat, do some editing back at our hotel rooms, reconvene for a critique session in the afternoon, and then head back to the park for sunset.

The weather gods smiled upon us that whole week. Monday, before the workshop, there was a dense fog in the morning, which eventually lifted to a low cloud cover. The landscape is dramatic all on its own, this cloud cover just added to it. We then were treated to magnificent sunrises and sunsets the rest of the week. We explored parts of the park I had never been to. We went to a part active, part abandoned town just outside of the park.  It was a week I will never forget. And I honestly have still not edited anywhere near all of the photos I took that week.

The other excursion was to New York City in October, for the first Out of New York Photography Conference. My role with the group is to help coordinate the photowalks, which is one of the defining features of the conferences. It was the first time I spent an extended amount of time in NYC, I had just driven through it previously. I spent the days at the conference center making sure the photowalks went out without a hitch. But, I did have the opportunity to lead one photowalk to Grand Central Terminal, and another to the 9/11 Memorial, both at night. The last day, I assisted the amazing Steve Simon for a street photography workshop. He took us to several different spots- the High Line, the corner of 57th Street and 5th Ave (Bill Cunningham’s Corner), Washington Square Park and finally, Chinatown. I fell in love with NYC, and I will be back for further exploration.

There were a couple of outings I attended locally in November and December. I think I just realized that I still had so many photos to sift through from the rest of the year, so I didn’t shoot as much for the last couple of months.

That concludes my look back to 2016. I will be posting a Top Ten, my Ten favorite photos of the year. That will be posted tomorrow. 2017 looks to have some more adventures, I can’t wait to get out and start shooting again!

The Three

Scenic, SD

Rural Farm, SD

Grand Central Terminal

Getting Their Bearings

BP Pedestrian Bridge

Morning In The Badlands

Details

Big Badlands Overlook

Badlands Sunset

Bighorn Sheep

Distant Light

Foggy Day

Grand Central Terminal

57th and 5th Dude

The Oculus

July and August. There may have been fewer days in each month when I was not out photographing something than when I was out. July started with an excursion to photograph the demolition of the original Malcolm X College and one of the older buildings on Rush University Hospital’s campus. I made two trips, the first with my friend Teresa, then I went back the next day with smaller camera that I could fit the lens through the chain link fence. It was really interesting to see some items left behind- a lab coat hanging on the door of a room, and a white board left in another. It is sad to see some classic architecture being torn down. The new campus is bigger, but lacks the character of the old campus.

The following weekend, I drove down to Springfield and met up with my friend Cathie, who had driven there from Myrtle Beach. Cathie is a huge Abraham Lincoln fan, so, as she says, Springfield is her Disneyland. We took a tour of his home, which is now part of the National Park Service. We checked out the old state capitol building, and visited his tomb at Oak Ridge Cemetery. I really, really tried to convince Cathie to try a horseshoe, a culinary staple in Springfield, but she wasn’t very interested. From there, we both drove back up to the Chicago area, and I had the opportunity to take Cathie around my home turf, finally. We hit a lot of the major spots downtown (Cloud Gate [aka The Bean], Millennium Park, the Cultural Center, the James Thompson Center, the River Walk, had dinner at the Billy Goat Tavern, and then finished the day at 360 Chicago in the John Hancock Center for sunset and nightscapes of the city). That was one day! Over the next few days, we visited the Chicago Botanic Garden, the Bahai Temple, Brookfield Zoo, and we took a tour hosted by good friend Wendy Bright of WendyCity- we took her 1920s Deco and Decadence Tour. And then we finished Cathie’s visit with a trip up to Milwaukee.

The rest of July included a hike in Starved Rock, followed by some amateur storm chasing that day, and then, I finished the month photographing a kitten adoption event hosted by the Animal Outreach Humane Society of McHenry County.

August included two trips downtown for sunset on a couple of occasions, a visit by my friend Karen from Michigan, where we did a photowalk downtown (and took a river taxi to Chinatown), and then a photowalk in Pilsen the next day. August finished with the meet up of the Drink and Click chapter, the theme was “street art” so we went to Logan Square. There were incredible examples for us to see.

A busy couple of months. But, nothing like what I experienced the first week of September. But some of you know all about that. For those of you who don’t you will just have to wait until tomorrow!

Chicago River

Dam on Illinois River

Chicago, Infrared

Street Art, Logan Square

Graff Is Art

We Want You

Buckingham Fountain And Fireworks

Buckingham Fountain And Fireworks

dsc_5806

Buckingham Fountain

Adopted Kitten

Photowalk In Pilsen

Milwaukee Art Museum

Tired Tiger

Meerkat

Bahai Tempe

Continuing on with the highlights of this past year, May turned out to be a very light month. I am not entirely sure why as I look back. The big highlights were two trips to the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, where I was finally able to photograph some cactus flowers just after they had bloomed. My timing every year previous was pretty awful, most of the time I was usually too late.

June made up for May. I attended the June meet up of the Drink & Click, the theme that month was “car details.” We went to a classic car show in Schiller Park, and spent the day falling in love with many of the cars, including an incredible 1959 Pontiac Bonneville that you could have fit an Olympic-sized swimming pool in the trunk.

The weekend after, I attended two events that could not have been more different from each other. The morning was spent with a friend of mine at the Illinois Fire Buffs’ exhibition at the Chicago Fire Academy (of the Chicago Fire Dept.). They had a collection of old fire engines which they drove around the block, and tents where vendors were selling anything from old fire equipment to CD recordings of emergency calls from fire departments across the nation. In the afternoon, I went to Millennium Park for the Zombie March. It’s an event that has been running for several years, but, apparently the zombie crowd has been steadily dissipating. There were only a handful of people participating this year.

At the end of the month, I worked at the Out Of Chicago Photography Conference. This was the third year of the conference, and it has grown exponentially each year. More attendees, more presenters, more activities. It is a blast, and it has been a privilege to have a small part in it the past two years.

We’ve reached the midpoint, next part will be up tomorrow!

Hook And Ladder

Chicago's Finest

REO Fire Engine

Cactus Flower

Zombie Jesus

Droplet

Prepping The Zombie

Crossing Shadows

Agora Statues

Skateboarders

Cactus Flower

Cactus Flower

Stuck In 66

Pontiac GTO

1959 Pontiac Bonneville

Fire Engine

The months of March and April 2016 were quite busy, I was out photographing something just about every weekend. The only weekends I missed were just after St. Patrick’s Day, as I was keeping an eye on Reno, my cat. That was the first of two major losses during this time- Reno had to be euthanized on March 21. The other weekend I missed was in the middle of April.

March started with photographing the Chiditarod, a charity event that raises food for the homeless. Teams decorate shopping carts, and then race through the West Town neighborhood Iditarod-style, with checkpoints along the way. Each team must raise food to be donated, there is a minimum they have to collect in order to participate in the race. It was a blast, seeing all of the work that went into the carts. I caught the start of the race, and then went to one of the checkpoints to catch some of the teams as they checked in.  The following weekend was March’s Drink And Click meet up at the St. Patrick’s Day parade. The month finished with a quick trip up to Milwaukee on March 26. And then, on March 31, I left town to meet up with my friend Cathie Crow in the Washington DC area. We had intended to catch the cherry blossoms, but ended up being about a week too late.

Our first day, April 1, was the day when the second of the major losses occurred- that morning, my friend Paul lost his battle with cancer. We spent our time in DC visiting many of the popular attractions, but sometimes, we had to improvise as it was Spring Break, and some of the crowds were just crazy. A storm hit Saturday night, and the next day (our last day in DC), the temperatures had dropped and the winds had picked up very strongly.

The other huge highlight for me in April came at the end of the month. I decided to take a short trip to Arizona for my birthday. Before leaving, I booked a Pink Jeep tour in Sedona for the Sunday afternoon when I arrived. Monday, I went back and spent the entire in Sedona, I took another Pink Jeep tour, and, in the afternoon, we got snow and winds gusting up to 60 mph, which made standing in “The Vortex” even more intense than it is normally.

The next day, I went to the Grand Canyon. I had never seen it with my own eyes before. Along with the first Pink Jeep Tour, I had booked a helicopter tour of the Canyon before I left Chicago. It is by far the best way to see the Canyon, you truly get an appreciation of how vast it is. After we landed, I explored the east rim for the afternoon. Having gotten this taster, I will have to return for more exploring, it is truly an incredible place.

Next up- May and June, tomorrow. Stay Tuned!

Milwaukee Art Museum

Panda At The DC Zoo

In Sedona, AZ

The US Marine Corps War Memorial

Street Musicians

Dyeing The River

The Grand Canyon

Sedona, AZ

Lincoln Memorial At Night

Space Shuttle Discovery

F-14 Tomcat

The Mall, Washington DC

St Patrick's Cathedral, DC

Chica-GoGos

Chiditarod Begins

Chiditarod Crew

2016 had a lot of personal highs, but also some real lows. Within the span of less than three weeks in March and April, I had to euthanize my cat, Reno, and then, on April 1, one of my closest friends of almost 20 years lost his battle with cancer.

And yet, 2016 was a great year for my photography. I managed to photograph every month, and, through the local chapter of the Drink and Click (a worldwide organization of photographers), I had the chance to photograph some very unusual events. Then, there were some absolutely unforgettable trips, particularly to Arizona and South Dakota. And, my two get togethers with my friend Cathie, first, when we met up in Washington, DC, and then when Cathie made the trip up to my home turf here in Chicago (by way of Springfield, IL).

And then there were the two photography conferences I was fortunate to attend as part of the planning team- the Out of Chicago Summer Conference in June, and the first Out of New York Conference in October. It’s a great group that I am fortunate and honored to be a part of.

To tackle this all, I have divided the year into bi-monthly segments. January’s highlights started with a meet up with some local photographers for sunrise at North Avenue Beach, on January 10. It was insanely windy, and as a result, very dramatic, but intensely cold. Still, we captured some amazing photos. Later in January, I met up with some other friends downtown for a fun Saturday of exploring interiors (the Harold Washington Library and the Cultural Center), and some alleys, and puddles (we were bizarrely fascinated with puddles lol).

Then, at the very end of the month, I met up with the local Drink and Click chapter to photograph at 111th Annual Winter Ski Jump Tournament at the Norge Ski Club in Fox River Grove, IL.

In February, I again met up with the Drink and Click chapter to photograph Cupid’s Undie Fun Run in Wrigleyville, on another intensely cold day. The month finished with a drive to far western Illinois, starting with a stop at the frozen Mississippi River, and then driving through the countryside. I get cabin fever in winter, so, even though it was cold, it was great to get out of the apartment for several hours.

North Ave Beach 1

North Ave Beach 2

Cold Winter Skyline

Cold Winter Skyline 2

Skyline Fragment

Winter's Shadows

Footsteps

Norge Ski Jump

Landing

Stuck the landing

Undie Fun Run

Undie Fun Run 2

Drank and Clicked

Frozen Mississippi

Winter Farm

The Three

Winter doesn’t stop me from photography, and I will be out and about again this year.

Tomorrow will be the next chapter, stay tuned, as they say!

Nelson Algren once wrote “Chicago is an October kind of town, even in spring.” Chicago is a city that shines in every season, and spring, summer and fall offer the best photographic opportunities, mainly due to the weather conditions. Winter should not be ignored, though. With the right preparation, some incredible scenes can be captured. In 1988, during a February snowstorm, I picked up my camera gear and took the Blue line downtown. I walked around for several hours, photographing the city during a typical winter storm. The images I captured are among my favorites, not just of that era. I captured a frozen Chicago River, with a view of the river that no longer exists, for instance.

I was much younger back then, and didn’t give the weather a second thought. More recently, we had a couple of very tough winters- 2012-2013, and 2013-2014. Even though the last two winters were milder, by comparison, we had a major blizzard hit in February 2015. Be that as it may, I have gotten out, braved the cold, snow and ice, and captured some pretty amazing scenes. The photo below was taken at Montrose Beach in March 2014, and the sand was frozen completely solid like concrete. Just one piece of evidence of how brutal that winter was.

Before embarking on winter photography, there are some very important considerations (the preparation I spoke of earlier):

• Dress for the conditions. It should go without saying, but make sure you wear layers. If the temperatures are below freezing, or if the wind chill is below freezing, make sure you have proper head, face and hand protection.
• Speaking of dressing properly, having a good pair of winter hiking boots is essential, especially if you will be exploring rural areas. Traction and warmth are crucial!
• Make sure your camera is rated to operate in the temperatures you will be shooting. High-end DSLRs are usually rated to operate in sub-zreo weather, but some consumer DSLRs and point-and-shoot cameras might not be.
• If at all possible, keep your camera under your coat to keep it warm. Cold temperatures significantly reduce battery life, so bring some extra batteries with you and keep them in a warm place (pants pockets if you’re wearing a long coat).
• Practice operating your camera while wearing gloves. If you have to remove your gloves to operate your camera, make sure you don’t have your hands exposed for very long. I bought a pair of gloves from an Army surplus store, which convert from mittens to fingerless gloves by opening the finger covering, and they were extremely helpful for shooting last winter.
• Condensation is a constant concern, if you’re going from warm interiors to cold exteriors frequently. Anyone who wears glasses knows what happens when you walk into a warm, humid building from the cold outside. Keep some microfiber cloths with you to wipe off any condensation or fog that may build on your lens.
• When shooting in bright sunlight, snow can have a blue glow. Even in mixed sunlight conditions, the snow will have a bluish tint in the parts that are exposed to direct sunlight. The easiest way to counteract this in the camera is to change your white balance setting to “shade” or “cloudy”. If you are shooting RAW, you can adjust the white balance when you edit your photos on your computer, but adjusting the white balance in the camera first will yield much more natural-looking photos.
• Consider bracketing your exposures, to see how the scene looks with different exposures.

As with anything in photography, practice and trial and error will help sharpen your skills when shooting in winter conditions. And most importantly, have fun! Don’t be afraid to explore, as long as you’ve made the preparations. You will no doubt see something truly incredible!

DSC_4672

DSC_4484

DSC_4394

DSC_4448

DSC_4418

DSC_4403

The weather in the Chicago area has finally gotten to spring-like. This meant one thing- I needed to visit the Chicago Botanic Garden again. I visit there several times during the year, but the last time I was there was in March for their Orchid Show. Visiting there gets me some much-needed exercise, and I get to explore one of my favorite photographic mediums- macro photography. The world is totally different when viewed through a macro lens. Details emerge that you do not see unless you are looking very close.

The gardens are beautiful, if you haven’t visited, it’s a must. And today’s weather was perfect, low 70s, sunny, great day for a walk in nature. The dahlias are not out yet, nor are the lily pads, we’re too early for them. But, there are still some great tulips to see. And I saw some (but they’re obviously not what I am writing about). Invariably, my visits to the Botanic Garden include a visit to their greenhouses. My favorite, by far, is the arid greenhouse. They have a great variety of cacti from around the world. No matter what season you are visiting, there is something interesting there. And, logically, if you’re there in winter, the arid greenhouse is a great place to warm up!

Now, while I do visit there several times during the year, I usually miss the blooms of the cactus flowers. I have either been there too early or too late- that sums up how my timing works out for most things, actually. Today, luckily, my timing worked out well. Several cactus flowers have already bloomed, and were still flowering. Others were very close to blooming.

Some of the blooms are just about ready to bloom- the Echinopsis “Apricot Glow” cactus has many buds that are going to open up during the next few days, perhaps even tomorrow. Others, like the echinocactus grusonii “Mexican Golden Barrel Cactus” and the opuntia Santa Rita Tubac “Purple Prickly Pear” Cactus have already bloomed. The flowers in the slideshow are from these varieties. And, one Apricot Glow cactus flower has bloomed (the photo is in the slideshow). But as you can see from a couple of the wider-angle photos, there are many more which are about to bloom. As these other buds are so close to blooming, a return trip will be happening very soon!

As I try to get my fledgling website to fly out of the nest, I realized I should attempt this thing called a blog. For this first blog, I decided to talk about a project that also is in its fledgling stage. Having recently had to empty out my parents’ house, which they had lived in since 1961 (although my dad passed in 2002), I made a point to make sure any photos they had were boxed up so that I could work on archiving them.

There were a few previous generations of photographers in the family, including my dad, who had his camera with him when he served in the US Navy in the Pacific Theater from 1945-1946. Fortunately, with the help of some eagle-eyed friends and family, I found all of the negatives from his Naval service. He continued to photograph all the way through getting married, having kids (my brother and I) and later, right up until his death. Archiving his photographic history is quite a daunting task, but one I have to accomplish. The difficulty is not only the volume, but also not having all of the stories behind the photos. He left behind some other items that I am hoping will shed a little light on what he took, particularly before I was born. In the first photo in this post, that’s him in uniform (taken in April 1947). That uniform is in storage currently.

This project will take years. I have only barely scratched the surface, but some of these first photos I have already digitized have provided a glimpse into the man I knew, but also who I didn’t know. But, beyond his history, at the same time, he captured history around him- in the Navy, and when he settled in Chicago after the war and became a civilian again. For example, he took photos of the city from vantage points that I have taken in my work.

The featured photo in this blog is a photo my dad took, looking south down Damen Ave. from the Damen Avenue elevated CTA stop in September 1946. The last photo is one I took last summer, from just about the same spot he took his. Although, at the time I took mine, I had no idea he had taken the same photo nearly 70 years ago. This journey has just started, and I cannot wait to see what other treasures he left behind! I hope you all will join me on this journey!