Still Life with Table, Cable, Beluga(s)

It was pretty hard to capture anything in this lighting. But this shot still speaks to me, despite how kind of awkward it is in composition. Or am I just injecting it with significance since I'm digging through the archives for a post that didn't immediately call to me?

Anywho, this is from my trip to the Spooky Seas last Friday. Appropriate then that I post it today. Although I think I'll be back tomorrow with stuff from Halloween proper.

Strange Things Are Afoot

If this were San Dimas, chances are better they would be afoot at the Circle K. If you have no idea what I'm on about, I pity your cultural deprivation.

The Smoking Room

At another Halloween party Saturday night. And what was I doing out there, a recent half-marathon runner? Just documenting, of course. Despite what reaction you might have to all the casual consumption of cancer sticks, I like this shot a lot. Very much captured the feeling of the scene out there on the porch. Lady in the foreground is an octopus, dude on the right was Colonel Sanders. And no, there wasn't any actual chicken in his bucket, disappointingly. I'm not sure of the other unfocused folks' costumes.

Incognito

This was at the less wholesome affair I referred to yesterday. But just in the sense that you probably wouldn't bring the kids. Nothing too crazy. Except DJ Arrr! here protected by Satan.

Spooky Seas

Phase 1 of my Friday night was spent at the Shedd Aquarium for this kids Halloween event. A friend was bringing her nephew and I came along for the novelty of it. Pretty cool to be roaming around there at night, albeit with a bunch of sugared-up little draculas and princesses running around. They were pretty cute though. I would have totally dug this as a kid.

This is in the main gallery where there's a big reef tank in the middle, and the room is mostly lit from the glow of the tank. You can actually spend the night in the aquarium for the event, and my friend and her nephew got a spot right up next to the glass of the tank. I however moved on to slightly less wholesome activities for the rest of my night.

Greater Fulton Market

Quickly snapped today when I went downtown to get a diffuser for my external flash. I'm inordinately excited about this little piece of plastic. I'm also excited to have discovered a really cool camera store. I went to a couple Wolf Cameras in the burbs yesterday looking for this thing. One referred me to the other, and the other referred me to Helix Camera. They had a whole rack of diffusers for a myriad of different flash models, which gives you an idea of the depth of their inventory.

Detroit Detour

Here's a sampling of my favorite shots from last weekend's trip to Detroit. I was met with a literal traffic detour almost first thing getting into the city on Saturday. But I enjoy orienting myself in new surroundings (well, new in the sense of not being guided by a local in this case) and found a decent alternate route to my first destination. Then, my parents and I took a kind of tourist detour to a couple of landmark abandoned buildings (why is it that Detroit is in the habit of letting these stand for so long?), plus the more standard Belle Isle (the fountain in the collage above). But I assure you I took no detours from the half marathon race course.

Streets of Woodfield

Strangetastes had the closest guess from yesterday. And then he confirmed it by clicking through to see that I had titled the flickr set that photo was in the same as this post. So yeah, this is actually a shopping mall. I think private businesses may occupy the upper floors of these places, but the rest are various storefronts. It's amazing (read: disgusting) to me how similar the look and feel of these places is to buildings going up all over in the city. Katie got it quite right in yesterday's comments. It's like Disney world. Why do I dislike that so much? I think it's something about the disingenuous nature of an obvious (and/or tacky) facade.

Anyway, less than two weeks left for me working out in the burbs. One thing I have enjoyed about being out here is getting a better regional perspective on Chicago. Still I'm excited to be rid of the commute, obviously. But the burbs will be drastically less represented in this blog, for better or worse. But I think I'll be gathering a lot of great new material with more time (and more free time, for various reasons) in the city.

More Ugly New Urban Construction?

Not quite. Guesses?

Another Painterly Cloudscape

Thass all. Heading back to Chicago from Detroit. The race was great!

Out of town, on hiatus, again

This weekend is the half-marathon I've been training for in Detroit. My Dad will be there too, but unlike me he has posts lined up for the weekend. Oh well, I'm finally staying put in Chicago after this until Thanksgiving.

Back with a post late Monday.

Who Paints Clouds Like This?

I couldn't think of anything I could find a representative sample of. Some Renaissance painters? Dutch Masters? Help me out art history buffs. Anywho, this was what I was lookin at in traffic yesterday evening.

PS Spot the plane!

Another Pinch Hitter

With nothing on deck (why the baseball metaphors? I'm not even that excited about this postseason...), I post a shot taken by my other travel companion to Michigan from last weekend (my camera, guidance, and post-processing - not to diminish their captures). This one was snapped by roomie Drew standing up through the sunroof as we inched along trying to escape downtown Chicago. This is in the area just north of The Loop known as Streeterville, which has a fascinating namesake and history.

Bright Hulking Fuzz

You know what it is if you've been reading the blog in the past week, or are just marginally susceptible to consumer brand propagation.

And don't get me wrong here. I am thoroughly enjoying my recent purchases from that big blue box.

Last Man on Earth

I saw a preview for the movie I Am Legend recently. In a nutshell it's about a guy who is the only survivor of a plague of vampirism. The preview didn't give that away though, it just showed Will Smith getting by in a crumbling and overgrown New York. And it hinted at some sinister something else, which would be the vampires.

But scenes such as him zooming up the canyon of a deserted Manhattan avenue awakened memories of childhood fantasies along similar lines. I think they had something to do with a child's desire to grow up and have access to all the adult things they are denied. But a quicker way to get that access would be if everyone just disappeared and I could just go hop in that plane (car, building, etc). I don't remember dwelling too much about the obvious negative consequences of such a situation.

Anyway, looking at this image and wondering what to write reminded me of that flashback in the theater. But it's got more of the sinister feeling from the movie than the adventure of my childhood daydreams.

Comin Home

Shot by mi amigo Michaela from the backseat, coming back from Michigan yesterday. I had another standout from my dreary burb shots last week, but wanted to show this first. Nicely lined up, lady!

PS The pumpkins did not explode - needed more powerful explosives :( One was eventually destroyed by a samurai sword.

Bleaker Still

Don't worry! Although I am actually listening to In Rainbows again right now, it's just because the album is really good and I want it to be me familiar to me already (anyone out there know what I mean by that?). Someone commented yesterday that I should cheer up! Well, although I'm feeling pretty great (just back from a run), I still appreciate the bleakness I see in an image like this. There's a comforting calm to it. Or something. I'm not articulating this idea quite right just now.

Off to Michigan this weekend for some autumnal beauty. And explosive pumpkin destruction on the beach! It's a netless weekend, so come back Monday for more depressing crap.

All I Need

Yesterday the band Radiohead released their latest album, In Rainbows, their first release in over four years. For many people, myself included, that's a big deal. It was also a non-musical big deal in that they made it available online for a digital download that cost between £0.45 (for processing) and whatever else you wanted to pay on top of that. I'll say that I did pay more, but not how much, except to say that is was a good chunk less than it would cost on iTunes or at a brick and mortar.

Having downloaded the album when I first got to work yesterday, I kicked off my first listen in the car at lunch on my way to Ikea. Which is all just coincidence. I needed some stuff from there. Having gotten most of what I needed (and realizing I needed to do some measuring before deciding on another thing), I got back to my car and put the album back on. I'm pretty sure the song playing was All I Need, which is one of the more spacey, melancholy tracks on the album. For some reason I just sat there for a while, spacing out myself. I looked around and saw myself in this kind of bleak landscape on a dreary day. And together with the music it was all coming together for me in a real adolescent, angsty beauty.

So I got out the camera and started to drive around. Right away I saw a hotel parking garage that I could freely enter and figured the perfect images for what I was feeling/perceiving could be captured there. This is one of them.

As always when I get on a little spurt like this, more to come.

The Square

Yesterday was waning and I didn't have anything to post for today, yet I also needed to go for a run. Since I had gotten a decent shot with my point and shoot last time I slipped it into my hydration pack, I figured I could squire up something decent again. I think it's more than coincidence that I did this one in black and white too. The colors on that camera just don't come out how I'm used to. But converting to black and white makes them salvageable. This tells me I should experiment more with stuff that looks good enough in color. I need to force myself to convert more to grayscale before it calls to me naturally.

Anyway, this is the eagle atop the pillar marking my 'hood.

Lincoln and Farragut, HBO and Showtime

Another from Motel Row.

Radio Silence

I've been in St. Louis without any backlog ready to post. Back tomorrow if I can dig up something worthy. This post from my dad shows part of what was occupying me this past weekend. He was awaiting me on the bridge like the paparazzi, two cameras ready with different lenses. Pretty awesome of him, not that I had to pull his leg. My slightly goofy expression is due to me trying to say something to him as I ran by, one earbud pulled out to hear any news or encouragement from him.

This run was really difficult. It was hotter than it had ever been for me on such a long run. On top of that St. Louis has hills, and the only ones I had encountered in Chicago were the humped bridges over the Chicago River. But I made it a little over my normal pace, under my buffered estimate for the day. The main event is now two weeks away in Detroit.

Homegrown

OK so this is a bit of a stretch. But these greenies were grown in my Chicago back yard. Left foreground is arugula. Going counter clockwise is rosemary, green beans, mint, marjoram, basil, parsley, and chives (maybe mixed up a few of those fuzzy ones). This became a salad and some herb butter. Gawd I love my garden. And that I can have one living in the city.

Do Not Feed The Elk

There is a corner of the forest preserve across the road from my office that shares its name with the suburb which it intersects. It is the elk grove from which Elk Grove Village gets its name. William Busse, after which the forest preserve is named, was a Cook County commissioner for quite a long time apparently. I found a reference to him holding the position in 1890, and then still in 1925 when he brought the elk from Jackson Hole, Wyoming to roam in the area of what's now Busse Woods.

The current herd of seven are the descendants of the original ten. They are now kept in a fenced in area with open pasture and woods, and cared for by veterinarians, as you can see by the above photo. The signs didn't seem to register with the folk I saw hand feeding them something through the fence. Although I think they were addressing some of the elk by name, I don't think the vets distribute the elk snacks out of a backpack. I got the below guy to approach the fence towards me, which was a little unnerving given its size and impressive antler rack. But he quickly turned away when he figured I didn't have any food.

Alley Bags

Is it just a Chicago regional thing, or is the bean bag game blowing up in other places too? Anyway, it seems like I've seen it around more and more the past few summers. Dug this one out of the recent archives. Bags in the alley at a BBQ in late August. This is the magnificence that was consumed there earlier in the evening:

Garrett Popcorn

This place is a Chicago institution. Walking to the train from the 5K last Saturday my friend had to go in and get a bag. I haven't developed a real craving for it, so I poked around outside and shot pictures. I like this one a lot, but I don't see it showing up on any Garrett promotional material anytime soon.

October Theme Day: Cemeteries and Tombstones

This is the headstone that caught my eye when I was running through Rosehill Cemetery a couple weeks back and returned later that day to get pictures. I mentioned all that in this post.

The text you can see here says:

Loved and Lost
Father and Son

Pretty sad eh? Here's another shot of the front of the stone which says (amongst some other stuff I can't quite make out) "Drowned May 20th 1899." It's a quite poetic tribute to such a tragedy. I like that the surviving family wasn't afraid to face the circumstances of their loved ones' death whenever they visited the grave.

Check out all the other DCPB sites participating today:

St. Louis (MO), USA - San Diego (CA), USA - Cleveland (OH), USA - New York City (NY), USA - Boston (MA), USA - Mainz, Germany - Hyde, UK - Arlington (VA), USA - Cape Town, South Africa - Saint Paul (MN), USA - Toulouse, France - Arradon, France - Menton, France - Monte Carlo, Monaco - Montego Bay, Jamaica - Ampang (Selangor), Malaysia - Joplin (MO), USA - Cottage Grove (MN), USA - Bellefonte (PA), USA - Mexico (DF), Mexico - Seattle (WA), USA - Baziège, France - Baltimore (MD), USA - Chandler (AZ), USA - Sequim (WA), USA - Stayton (OR), USA - Stockholm, Sweden - Austin (TX), USA - Singapore, Singapore - Anderson (SC), USA - Orlando (FL), USA - Greenville (SC), USA - Wassenaar (ZH), Netherlands - Nashville (TN), USA - Tenerife, Spain - Manila, Philippines - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Jacksonville (FL), USA - River Falls (WI), USA - Chateaubriant, France - Quincy (MA), USA - Rabaul, Papua New Guinea - Buenos Aires, Argentina - Crystal Lake (IL), USA - Inverness (IL), usa - Lubbock (TX), USA - Phoenix (AZ), USA - Moscow, Russia - Norwich (Norfolk), UK - Crepy-en-Valois, France - Minneapolis (MN), USA - New Orleans (LA), USA - Montréal (QC), Canada - West Sacramento (CA), USA - Toruń, Poland - Philadelphia (PA), USA - Christchurch, New Zealand - London, England - Paderborn, Germany - The Hague, Netherlands - Selma (AL), USA - Sunderland, UK - Kyoto, Japan - Tokyo, Japan - Stavanger, Norway - Fort Lauderdale (FL), USA - Weston (FL), USA - Portland (OR), USA - Forks (WA), USA - Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation - Maple Ridge (BC), Canada - Boston (MA), USA - Sydney, Australia - Wellington, New Zealand - Montpellier, France - Jackson (MS), USA - Wailea (HI), USA - Petaling Jaya (Selangor), Malaysia - Evry, France - Saarbrücken, Germany - New York City (NY), USA - Santa Fe (NM), USA - North Bay (ON), Canada - Melbourne, Australia - Port Vila, Vanuatu - Cypress (TX), USA - Saint Louis (MO), USA - Paris, France - San Diego (CA), USA - Wichita (Ks), USA - Haninge, Sweden - Prague, Czech Republic - Zurich, Switzerland - Budapest, Hungary - Paris, France - Saigon, Vietnam - Grenoble, France - Zurich, Switzerland - Port Angeles (WA), USA - Naples (FL), USA - Toronto (ON), Canada - Sequim (WA), USA - Chicago (IL), USA