One of the city’s most popular tourist attractions, the Clarence F. Buckingham Memorial Fountain in Chicago, Illinois was completed in 1927. From that time through 1980 the water was manually operated by two engineers located on site working 12-hour shifts. A computer system was eventually brought in to automate the water flow, but the fountain still operates it’s every-hour-on-the-hour twenty minute sound and light show while the fountain is in operation (8am through 11pm daily, weather permitting).

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I’m on Instagram and periodically post an image or two (you’ll find me on the site as @kjkettnerphoto). Like Facebook, Twitter and every other social network site, you can follow people just like they can follow you. One of the people I follow on Instagram is the Chicago Tribune.

Occasionally the Tribune will post a photo challenge ranging from “show us your best food pics” to “what does the month of June mean to you?” Simple stuff, really, but it’s a nice opportunity to get the creative juices flowing and get a loose theme for image-making.

Since the weather was going to be right around 100 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday, the Tribune wanted to see “hot weather photos” throughout the day. So, at the height of the scorching heat, I jumped into my car and took off to find an image of summer heat that has always been ingrained in my memory.

A few years back I was covering a Chicago White Sox game and on my lunch break (two hours before the game) stumbled upon a bunch of kids playing in the water of an open fire hydrant. So, my goal was to head towards the same neighborhood and maybe find some more kids playing in a the water of an open hydrant.

Once I got off the expressway, it took all of ten minutes to find what I was looking for, and amusingly, it was a mere block and a half from where I last saw it two or three years ago.

I spent just over a half-an-hour taking pictures of the kids running and playing in the water. I didn’t waste much time before I pleasantly stood in the water myself to take pictures. At the hottest part of the day, the water was cool and refreshing.

By the way, it is never recommended to open up a fire hydrant. As a matter of fact, I think it’s against the law for unauthorized people to do so. Watching the news last night, viewers were encouraged to call the police if they see someone opening a hydrant. Good to know now, I guess.

Also, there are a few additional pictures posted on my Facebook page.  Feel free to wander over and click around for a bit. Perhaps while you’re there, give the page a “Like,” won’t you?

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This so wasn’t the blog image I was planning on posting today.

This week’s self-impose theme was to take a random image and write up the story behind it. From slowly rowing across the Yamuna River to stumbling across a car accident, my goal was to really go into deep detail about an image that may not be too impressive.

However, as I was writing the blog post for today’s image, it ended up becoming quite the long batch of text. Similar to last time, I pulled the photoblog in hopes of selling it to a travel magazine. (You can read the blog post from the last time it happened on the Vagabundo Magazine website by clicking here.) So, in a few months, hopefully I’ll post the link to an article on the aforementioned website about traveling through the mountains of Bhutan.

In the meantime, very much not the Himalayas, today’s blog post is an image of one of the greatest skylines in the world.

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The caption for this picture is “A boat motors down the Chicago River shortly after sunrise in Chicago, Illinois.” That’s is the short version. The long version is after taking this picture I continued my way South, walked down the sketchy looking staircase to ground level and moseyed along the river for a bit. It was a beautiful September morning and I was just wandering around the Chicago River to see what I could find photographically.

There is a stairwell at Columbus Drive going up a couple of street levels. The first level is Lower Wacker Drive and up another level is Upper Wacker Drive. As I climbed the steps to Upper Wacker Drive, I heard an extremely loud sound.

You know the sound of a dump truck unloading gravel? That sound of gravel scraping followed by a loud “thud” of the back door swinging closed on the truck’s bed? Basically a “scraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaape, THUD.” I heard exactly the opposite of that sound near the top of the steps.

THUD.

Scraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaape.

Arriving a street level I was immediately surprised to not see whatever dump or garbage truck made the noise. Perhaps the mystery truck hit a pot-hole and the bed of the truck bounced? (Plausible as we do have some ferocious pot-holes in Chicago.)

Oh wait. There is a car upside down 50 feet beyond another car with the front end sheered off.

The sound I heard was that of the two cars connecting and the overturned car scraping along the roadway. The flipped car eventually came to rest against a large concrete abutment.

The driver of the overturned car quickly got out of her car screaming “OhmyGod!OhmyGod!OhmyGod!OhmyGod!…” while the driver of the other car wasn’t really getting out of his car. I went over to him while the others attended to the screaming woman.

After helping the gentleman from the car missing its front-end, the man called his wife and simply told her “to call the insurance company.” His chest hurt (hopefully from the blast of the airbag), but I was happy he was standing outside of his car under his own power talking.

Within minutes the Chicago Fire Department rolled up and a large fire truck stopped in the middle of the intersection. The firefighters got out and looked at the man and I standing in the road next to the destroyed car. The first firefighter said “How we doing?”

“His chest hurts and she has some other issues,” pointing to the overturned car.

“Oh [expletive]!” said the firefighter and off he and a few others went.

I didn’t stay much longer at the scene. I took off once the firefighters had arrived and everyone received the appropriate attention. It kind of rattles you, however, when you’re walking along and everything is going well, and then, not-so-much. Luckily everyone was okay, but it still made me want to go home and hug my wife.

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Lake Michigan always seems to fascinate me. Be it the lighthouses, the sun rising over it, or an enormous barge quietly chugging along, I could sit and watch the lake for hours.

Several years ago my wife and I did the Lake Michigan Circle Tour and it was neat to see the same lake and how it changes every few miles; especially the differences between the East side and the West side.

I feel like living in Chicago always offers great opportunities to view Lake Michigan on it’s best days and worst days.

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There is something about this picture I really like. Be it the CTA train passing over cars lined up at a stop light, or the numerous amount of lines running through the image.

Either way, this is a picture that I’ve really come to like because it’s simple but different. No, it’s not a large panorama of the skyline (which I so often take pictures of). Instead, it’s just a close-up shot of a typical Chicago intersection.

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For the past few weeks I had been plotting to go out on a boat and shoot some images of the Chicago skyline. Last week I did one of the boat tours launching from Navy Pier, but I had to specifically do it Friday because of the boat’s schedule, my schedule, and the sun’s location in the sky.

I ended up walking away with a bunch of pictures I really, really like, but with as busy as this weekend has been, I haven’t been able to make my way through the images.

This is the first picture I landed on while I was importing the photographs to my computer.  I like the brightness of everything in the picture and am looking forward to going through all of the images.

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I think I found a new favorite place to watch the sun rise over the City of Chicago. The downside, however, is this location is just short of impossible to get to.

This location is behind McCormick Place and to take this specific picture I rode my bike nearly ten miles down the lakefront. If I drove my car and wanted to park free, it’d be about 3/4 of a mile walk. If I didn’t mind paying, it’d be at least $20.00.

None of the options seem overly appealing.

Anyway, this image is taken from behind McCormick Place looking past Burnham Harbor at Soldier Field and the rest of Chicago’s Skyline. It’s no secret I’m in love with Chicago’s ever-changing skyline, but so often we see images taken from the Adler Planetarium that I think it’s nice to mix things up a bit and include Soldier Field.

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For reasons that make it Chicago’s most-visited tourist attraction, I think Navy Pier is always a fun place to shoot some pictures. There is something for everybody, from the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse standing tall just off of the pier’s end, to lots of food like to cotton candy and those suger-covered fried dough concoctions.

A few weeks ago I wandered down to Navy Pier on a beautiful late-Spring day.  The Ferris Wheel was it’s usual popular self, but lots of kids were more interested in the Wave Swinger taking them on an exhilarating ride fourteen feet in the air.

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A Memorial Day weekend tradition in Chicago is when the city shuts down Lake Shore Drive to motor vehicle traffic and opens it up only for bicycles. It’s called “Bike the Drive” and it’s a fun event each year to mark the beginning of summer.

Having taken a few years off, my wife and I decided to register and peddle our way up and down one of Chicago’s most famous roadways. We ended up riding from end to end, about 30 miles, before getting back home just before the summer heat kicked in.

A lot of people were out, including families of all ages, and it’s nice to mosey down the lakefront on a bike, instead of the usual racing by in our cars.  Going slower allows one the time to notice how beautiful Chicago can be.

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In April I was given an opportunity (and a photo pass) to shoot one of my favorite musical acts.

I still remember the first time I heard Rodrigo y Gabriela on the radio.  I was driving to U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago to cover the White Sox game and a few blocks from my apartment the one song ended on the radio and then Tamacun came on.  I nearly drove off the road listening to Rodrigo y Gabriela rock and roll with their guitars.  It reminded me of the first time I heard the Rolling Stones.

It was my high school years and I was cleaning my portion of my parents’ basement.  We had satellite TV at the time, and it was on the classic rock music channel as I cursed my way through the pile of my own debris. Suddenly I found myself focusing on a soft singing choir going on about “you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need.” It’s probably one of the softer Rolling Stones hits, but the song introduced me to Mick Jagger and the gang.

Many years later when I heard Rodrigo y Gabriela, it was the second time I had ever stopped what I was doing to focus on the music.  I was driving at the time and was lucky to get stopped by a red light, but after purchasing several albums and seeing them perform live, Rodrigo y Gabriela throw quite a show and I was honored to be invited to photograph it.

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A few years back I sat for an evening and just watched boats quietly glide up and down the Chicago River. It was extremely peaceful, but a super-hot night as well.  I spent most of my time waiting for a boat to come through, so I had more time to think about how hot I was than actually take pictures.

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Recently, for no particular reason, I posted this image on my Facebook page.  I liked it more than I thought I would, so I figured I’d make it an official blog post out of it.

A few weeks back a friend called to ask if I could shoot some images of his bar’s “open microphone night” for his website.  It was a last minute phone call, but as it turns out, the timing was perfect and I could make it.

The idea of the shoot was to take a bunch of pictures of the various lights in use and capture the general look and feel of the open mic night.  I was a lot of fun to shoot, and turned out to be better than expected because I shot a concert at the Chicago Theatre a few nights later.

Anyway, during the course of the evening, I moved around to a variety of locations trying to capture the show from different locations.  During one of the last songs of the night, I made my way towards the back of the room and noticed the girl recording her friends’ performing on stage with an iPhone.  It was a nice change from all the other images I took, and turned out to be one of my favorites of the night.

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Yesterday I made it out of the house for my first “Photo Safari” of the year.  After shooting a bunch of images in other countries and states, it was nice to get out and explore my own city again.

I forget how much I love Chicago, and how much there is to see and do.  Even for a 70 degree weekday, there was still a good number of people out exploring The Bean, Michigan Avenue and everything else Chicago has to offer.

Yesterday I chose to walk along the Chicago River and see what I could find.  This image has nothing to do with the Chicago River, nor can you even see the river in the picture, but it was the first picture I took after getting off of the train to start my journey.

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