I have a lot of images of the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse, and a majority of them are around sunrise.
The sun coming up from behind the landmark never ceases to impress me, and many times the fog, clouds or lighting is awesome. As such, it’s an often photographed spot in the City of Chicago, but Mother Nature never gives the same photo opportunity twice.
February 2009. (1862)
In early 2011 we had a fairly definitive springtime. The weather patterns did what they normally do and towards the the middle-to-end of April we had a bunch of pleasantly sunny and warm days.
In 2012, on the other hand, things got crazy. Our winter was nearly non-existant and our spring came early. Very early. We had something like ten days in a row where Chicago broke the high temperature mark in March.
As a result of the crazy weather patterns, this year’s spring is a little aloof. Since it was so nice so early, many plants and trees are in danger of losing their buds should we get a frost. Additionally, the flowers are all coming up at random times, so when the weather gets nicer and spring actually arrives, I’ll be curious to see what, if anything, still pops up.
May 2012. (9171)
While wandering around India, we realized just how popular cricket is there. Sure, I’ve heard many stories of cricket frenzied Indians but never really realized how frenzied it really was.
On our way back to the hotel, we were walking along the street and passed a park with droves of kids playing cricket. Some were in jeans and T-shirts, some were in tattered clothes, and some were in traditional religious wear. It was fascinating to watch, but after a short while, they boys took an interest in Alisha.
Everywhere in India we went Alisha was quite popular. We weren’t sure of the exact reasoning, and it was further complicated when a older gentleman briefly chatted with us and mentioned Alisha looks eerily similar to a famous Bollywood actress.
While we were watching the boys play cricket, one eventually came over with his camera phone to snap a picture of us. (And by “us,” I mean he motioned for me to slide out of the picture.)
Since turnabout is fair play, we continued to watch the boys play cricket, but before we left I took a few photos of them.
March 2012. (1028)
Since last week on the day of the Cubs home opener I posted an image from Wrigley Field, today I’ll post an image of U.S. Cellular Field, or if you loathe the name like me, Comiskey.
This picture was difficult to get. When I first discovered the location, it was an empty plot of land and completely unused and ignored. During the White Sox offseason from 2010 to 2011 the City of Chicago planted a few trees and numerous small bushes. What was originally a space easy to maneuver to get the shot I was looking for turned into a bunch of grumbling and twisting around trees.
September 2011. (8929)
It was truly an enjoyable experience to wander around the Great Wall of China so early in the morning by ourselves.
For the first 15 or 20 minutes Alisha and I explored the wall, having the time of our lives experiencing a bit of history first-hand. Shorty after that 20-minute window passed, a few more people started to gather on the wall. Then a few more.
Suddenly the Great Wall of China seemed packed with tourists.
Everywhere we turned there were people walking by with their radios blaring, tour groups shouting amongst themselves and children screaming as they ran by. It became a bit of a headache, but we still were able to force ourselves to enjoy the moment.
We really ended up cherishing our earlier time alone on the famed wall.
October 2010. (4634)
I spent last weekend in Iowa City for the Big Ten Men’s Gymnastics Championships. Normally I make the drive to Iowa in the dead of winter and am either trudging through a snowstorm or trying to re-gain feeling in my feet from the frigid temperatures. Sometimes both at the same time.
This trip to Iowa, however, was beautiful. The trees were coming alive with springtime and the sun was warm and bright. I was genuinely excited to go out and capture some images because so often I was in town with foul weather or the dark of night.
April 2012. (3019)
For whatever reason, I don’t have many pictures posted in the photoblog from the safari Alisha and I took in South Africa. It’s a shame because we had a wonderful time and I came home with a plethora of pictures — 1,107 pictures to be exact.
I could easily do a month or two of safari pictures every day that didn’t make the South Africa photo gallery, but instead I’m apparently going sparingly with them.
So here’s a picture of a Bateleur eagle leaping into flight.
August 2011. (4354)
This is another image of the Fond du Lac lighthouse, located at the Southern end of Lake Winnebago, at the entrance to the Fond du Lac Yacht Club.
This summer I’ve set dates aside to head back up to “Fondy” and shoot some more images of the area, including the iconic lighthouse.
October 2009. (2941)
A new baseball season brings so much anticipation and excitement. Up until this point, the slate is clean and hope springs anew.
Oftentimes, because of my job and living in the city of Chicago, I’m asked who do I like better: the Cubs or the Sox? Truth be told, I like both teams a lot.
While I think the American League is more difficult because of the designated hitter, I like that pitchers have to bat in the National League, making it more of a “team” thing (besides, if you get a pitcher who can hit, it becomes another threat to the opponent).
In the end, I just look for quick games. The Cubs and Sox have the ability to draw out some excruciatingly long games, and Major League Baseball never bothers enforcing the “12 seconds between pitches” rule.
As for the above image, obviously, I took this picture of Wrigley Field at night. I remember it being one of those blazing hot summer nights and I rode my bike to the ballpark. Carrying my photo gear while peddling through Chicago’s streets was a pain in the butt, and I was a sweaty hot mess by the time my image-making was completed. However, Alisha called on her way to meet up with some friends for a nice, frosty cold beverage.
The hotter summer nights get, the better tasting a bucket of beer can be.
July 2009. (1668)
Construction began in 1874 in St. George, Bermuda on a replacement for the town’s St. Peter’s Church. However a series of problems developed, from a storm ravaging the near-completed site to financial concerns and political infighting within the parish. Construction halted and the church began to crumble over time.
In 1992 the Bermuda National Trust stepped in to preserve the structure in its unfinished state. To this day the church remains unfinished with its towering stone walls, grassy floor and massive sky-light.
March 2010. (1924)
The Chicago Harbor Lighthouse has to be one of the more photographed locations in the City of Chicago.
It’s located just off of the Eastern end of Navy Pier, which is Chicago’s most popular tourist destination.
In 2005 the Coast Guard offered to give the lighthouse to any group or organization who would be willing to take on the lighthouse and keep it up and running. Because of it’s location on the narrow Lake Michigan breakwater, no suitable offers were made and, after a lengthy transfer process, the Coast Guard offloaded the lighthouse to the City of Chicago.
May 2009. (3551)
I’ve seen this picture pop up around the internet lately.
I highly doubt there is some actual event going on which makes it the current thing to write about. More likely, I think it’s just a popular image and just a coincidence I’ve seen it around as much as I have.
While plundering the Galapagos Islands, we woke up early to start our accent to the Island of Bartolome. As we approached the dock in our eight person raft (six guests, one guide, one raft pilot), a giant National Geographic Adventure boat roared up. The few of us on our catamaran commented how we really liked our experience on the smaller boat better than the large, ominous boat. I remember only thinking how much I wanted to get to the top of the Island of Bartolome before the massive boat unloaded its swarm of passengers.
Luckily, that’s exactly what happened.
The National Geographic boat took a long time to offload all of it’s passengers that we were already on our way back to our boat when the hoards of tourists were just leaving their boat for the dock.
March 2007. (2127)
This is a very exciting photograph for me.
For quite some time now, I’ve been operating my camera with debris on my camera’s sensor. Basically, every time I take a picture, there is a tiny black blob on the image. (In this picture, the blob would be in the sky, slightly above the red water tower.) It’s relatively faint and easy to hide, but it’s also a pain in the ass. Most of the time I can easily remove it, but I knew the day would eventually come that I couldn’t make it disappear.
However, last week I dropped my camera off for a deep cleaning.
Among other things, my camera has been through a sandstorm in Namibia and India’s Holi Fest. It has earned a deep cleaning.
So this picture was really a test picture. The camera and lens were cleaned, and I just wanted to make sure everything is running at one hundred percent, which is good because Spring and Summer are fast approaching, and I have great plans about getting out and capturing some images.
March 2012. (2922)
This image was taken towards the end of a very long day.
While attending the Maine Media Workshop in 2009, my brother and I awoke early to go capture the sun rising over the Rockport harbor. It was a beautiful sunrise, and inspired us to keep going through the day.
As we zipped around the area taking more and more pictures throughout the day, we finished our classwork as the sun started to get low in the sky. Since we watched the sun rise, why not watch it set?
This time, however, we raced to the Rockland harbor and watched the sun set from there. After the sun dipped below the horizon, the bright orange colors still shined brightly in the sky.
October 2009. (0471)
I didn’t get to a whole lot of postings last week because I was trying to get a jump on the 3,000 images from India, Bhutan, Nepal and the United Arab Emirates.
By Friday I had made it through Nepal and most of the Bhutan pictures, but this Friday I hope to make it through the pictures from the UAE and India. The latter’s images will be a beast, because India was nearly overwhelming with things to take pictures of … not to mentioned the least of which was Holi Fest.
So, in an attempt to give myself a quick break from the recent trip, here is something slightly different for myself from China.
While in Xi’an, Alisha and I gave ourselves plenty of time to explore the Terracotta Army. It’s amazing how much detail is in each of the different figures. It is said no two soldiers are the same, most likely because one man carved the appearance of another man, and the other man returned the favor. Basically, “I’ll carve you if you carve me.” So the various workers each made a point to include themselves in the army.
October 2011. (4132)
I have always loved Buddhist prayer flags, so while we were in Bhutan I was excited to see them.
Everywhere.
In the small Himalayan country I took 861 pictures. I think all but a few have prayer flags in the image somewhere.
February 2012. (0311)
Kathmandu may be the world’s only capital city with a power issue. I am not speaking of politics, I mean actual electrical power. They call it “load shedding” and several hours a day the electricity is cut in different neighborhoods to give everyone in the city an equal share of the misery. It’s so frequent, the schedule is posted.
Our first night in Nepal, for example, we went to a pub and ordered food and beers before six o’clock, because that would be it until 10:30pm for electricity. Sure enough, nearly six on the nose the music died, the lights went dark, and all we heard was the gentle sound of rain falling on the canvas roof. The soft glow of candles on each table gave it a cozy, warm, comforting feeling.
Since it’s a regularily scheduled occurance (the following day was 5am to 10am, and again 6pm to 8:30pm) most places are well-prepared. Slowly the generators were started up, the music came back on and life went on as usual. For the few minutes the power was out, it was a nice reminder of how we (in the United States) can take the simple things in life for granted. At home, we have hot running water 24-hours a day, and enough electricity to power anything we could imagine. Here, they’re fine with electricity only half of the day, and adjust accordingly the rest of the time.
And God love ‘em for keeping the beer cold.
March 2012. (2333)
I like this simple picture showing the sun and the London Eye Ferris Wheel. Both are big and impressive, to me.
The weather was freezing cold on this trip, so I don’t have many outdoor pictures from London. I am, however, going back to London this summer, so I’m looking forward to getting more images and roaming around with my camera a bit more.
February 2006. (0018)
While wandering around Kinsale, Ireland, it was enjoyable to look at all of the houses and their bright, bright paint-jobs. There were a variety of blues, reds, yellows and such.
This particular house had rich blue walls, with windows’ trim painted bright yellow. What really caught my eye was the colors bursting out of the rain gutter. I’m not sure what type of weed or flower it is, but I like the pink and red against the blue and green background.
June 2011. (1019)
Wandering around Panama City, Panama for the day, we made our way into the Old City. It was pretty and full of history, but also full of seedy-looking abandoned buildings. At one point, we were stopped by the police and told to leave the area before the sun sets.
Helpful, but not exactly reassuring.
August 2007. (0038)
