Chicago

It's cold and snowy in Chicago and living up to its nickname of the windy city. The train trip from Minot was uneventful and we were ahead of schedule most of the way. There doesn't seem to be a big selection of nice restaurants with vegetarian options but we enjoyed going back to Trattoria No. 10 (despite getting lost on the way!).

This morning we walked over to the Shedd Aquarium. It's quite a nice walk along the lake in warmer weather. We got to the aquarium early to beat the crowds. I was a little disappointed with the dolphin show when they brought out a dog for part of it. I know everyone loves dogs these days, but what do they have to do with an aquarium!







After the aquarium we had lunch at Terzo Piano in the Art Institute. And we couldn't miss a visit to the nearby Cloud Gate (aka the bean) where I had fun with finding abstract reflections.







Next stop was the Museum of Contemporary Photography for their 40th anniversary exhibit. Unfortunately, their taste in photography is quite different from mine. Still, it was interesting.

By then it was time for coffee and we stopped at Intelligentsia. Last time we were here they didn't have much in the way of tea, but this time they had a steamed chai that Shelley said was quite good. The coffee, of course, was excellent.

For more photos, see all 19 as a slideshow or overview

On Our Way

Three moose beside the highway. One looks up as we pass. What funny faces they have

A snowy owl in the half dark, on the ground, watching us go by.

Yikes, a car driving towards us on the wrong side of the divided highway.

A bald eagle on the ground, pulling morsels off some carcass. A raven looking tiny beside it, scrounging for leftovers.

Clouds screaming by overhead, their shadows racing our car at 100 km/hr.

Traveling again.

Photo of the Day

The weather outside might be crazy with freezing rain in January, but the sun is getting a little higher, and we do have some wonderful greenery inside Innovation Place. I'm sure the people in their offices were wondering what I was taking photos of, but I couldn't resist the backlit leaves.

Print of the Week

The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.
- Dorothea Lange

I have my Flickr photos as the screen saver on my Apple TV and this photo happened to come up. As it slid onto the screen I couldn't figure out what it was at first. I like photos like that, where it's something real and natural, but still somewhat abstract, where it puzzles you for a moment. In this case it's also a matter of camouflage. I wonder what slow reptilian thoughts pass through its brain as it waits motionless but alert.



The large print (15" x 20") shows off the texture and detail well, a good example of why I like to print my photos. I cringe when I think that a lot of people see photos mostly on tiny phone screens or as a small image in their Facebook feed.

This was one from the Santa Barabara zoo in the fall. 

Land of the Living Skies

Beautiful sunset on the walk home from work yesterday. I'm not sure what made it so colorful.





I also did panorama versions - click on them to view larger.





Now that Lightroom has a panorama merge built-in I find I'm doing more than when I had to switch to Photoshop for it. (The panorama feature built into cameras isn't usually available if you're shooting Raw.)

Photos of the Day

I had an appointment downtown so I was walking along the river a little later than my usual walk to work, which meant I got to catch the sunrise. It was -20c, not much wind, with some fog on the river. A little cold for photography, and I didn't have much time to spare, but I couldn't resist a few shots.





There were Common Goldeneyes on the river and a Downy Woodpecker in a tree. I could hear more chickadees than I could see, always a cheery sound. On the way home, at noon, in broad daylight I encountered a coyote on the paved Meewasin trail. It looked at me, and the people approaching from the other direction, and then wandered away from the path and down to the riverbank.

Exploring the Frost

After my frustration at being stuck inside with all the beautiful frost outside, I was determined to get out the next morning to take some photos. Thankfully there hadn't been any wind to speak of so the frost was still thick on the trees. I headed out before it got light hoping to catch the sunrise but thick gray clouds blocked the sun. There wasn't even a bright spot in the sky where the sun should be, and not a hint of color. But it was the frost that had lured me out and there was no shortage of that!




Although I love sunshine, it's actually quite hard to take photos of snow in bright sun and the soft flat lighting was better in many ways. One drawback though, is that white subjects against a white background tend to blend together. Usually I prefer natural light but I used the flash a few times when it was still quite dark and found that it worked well to make a subject stand out by making it bright against a dark background. Cameras have gotten much better with flash and they now do amazingly well, even with tricky subjects like white snow. Of course, the results weren't always completely natural looking but I was ok with the tradeoff.





I shot a variety of subjects, from closeups of the frost (amazingly thick) to views of the river. There were even some ducks - Common Goldeneyes. They were funny to watch - one minute there'd be a big group swimming along and the next they'd all pop out of sight (diving for food), only to all reappear a moment later.



At one point I was kneeling at the base of some trees just off the trail, shooting straight up. A man came along the trail with his dog and I gave them both a good scare when I stood up out of nowhere!



Normally when I process my photos I'm aiming for sharpness and contrast but with a few of these I went the opposite direction, trying to recreate the hazy look of the gray day with the snow in the air.





It was quite cold (around -20c) but I dressed warm and it wasn't too bad. I just wore a thin glove on my right hand to operate the camera and kept it in my jacket pocket the rest of the time. After an hour or so my fingers and toes were getting cold and I started to head towards home. But strangely they gradually warmed up again and I ended up staying out for over two hours. My body must have realized that it wasn't going to freeze and it didn't need to cut off circulation to my extremities!



Although I didn't make it more than 10 minutes walk from home I ended up taking over 500 photos, filling up one 16gb memory card and starting on a second. (My camera has dual slots.) I had a spare battery warm in an inside pocket but the one in the camera only dropped one notch, despite the cold and using the flash. It started snowing towards the end but by then the camera was cold enough that the snow didn't melt or stick.



These last two were my prints for the week.

The downside of taking that many photos is going through them afterwards and trying to pick out the "best". I gave up after whittling it down to 50. That's still too many, but I got tired of choosing!

If you want more, see all 50 as a slideshow or overview

Fairyland

Every brief and fragile crystal is a glittering jewel in its own right, transient but perfect. Blue shadows lie across the snow. And the meaning of that snow: life for the thirsty grass. Life for the animals that feed on the grass. Life for us who live here.
- Edward Abbey

I emerged from the house into the still dark morning to find the world transformed into a magical frost covered landscape. It was still dark, lit only by the street lights, but brighter from the white all around. Despite it being really too dark for photography (at least without a tripod) I only made it the half block to the end of the alley before feeling compelled to pull out my camera.



I love my morning walk to work. The lower path along the river was a tunnel through the frost covered trees. The frost was sparkling like diamonds. This is my kind of "Christmas tree". Not some indoor plastic thing covered with colored baubles. (Apologies to those of you who love your decorated trees, it's just not my thing.)



I continued to take photos as I walked to work although I really wasn't too sure any of them would turn out. My everyday carry RX100 is a great camera, but for this I would have had a better chance if I'd had my DSLR. As I expected, many of the photos were useless but surprisingly, some of them turned out not too bad. (As long as you don't look too close!) Even if none of them had turned out, it was still worth it since the camera makes me look closer at the amazing world around me.



I took the two shots forming this panorama separately without thinking about joining them, but when I saw them on the computer I immediately thought to combine them. The ice on the river was moving enough to be a bit blurred with the long exposure. (1/3 sec handheld!)



Even after arriving at work I had to take a few more shots out the window of my office.



Walking between buildings at lunch the sun was glinting off the frost and I itched to be out taking more photos, but I had work to do.

By the time I walked home it was dark again and my camera stayed in my pack. At least the days are getting longer again :-)

For more of these photos see all 8 photos as a slideshow or overview

Best wishes to everyone for the holidays!

Winter

The sunshine lured me outside yesterday afternoon with my camera, although there's not much warmth in it this time of year. It was only around -10c but still cool enough standing around taking photos, especially with mitts off to work the camera.

There are limited subjects around - no butterflies or flowers! But the ice and snow form their own patterns and aren't without their own cold beauty.



The remains of the plants are dry and brown and the seeds are waiting for spring.



With the cooler weather the river is starting to freeze over.





I also stopped on the way home tonight to try to capture the pastel colored sunset.



For more photos see all 18 as a slideshow or overview

Sunrise

The sunrise this morning was very colorful. I wasn't going to try to take photos because our view is quite cluttered, but Shelley started taking some and shamed me into it :-)

Here's the overall "cluttered" view. Although the ground does slope down behind the house it's not quite enough to have a clear view.



To make better photos I zoomed in to smaller sections of the scene.



After taking one shot of this, I realized the camera was focusing on the near tree, so I took another shot focusing on the far trees. As I was trying to choose between them I realized I could "focus stack" them, basically taking the top part of one and the bottom part of the other. Although Lightroom now lets you merge panoramas and HDR, you still need to use another tool like Photoshop to do focus stacking. Hopefully that'll come to Lightroom at some point.

And even tighter:



And a little different section:



When you shoot raw, you have the freedom to adjust the white balance after the fact. That's great, except it means you have to try to remember what the color really was, or at least decide what you want it to be. I always laugh when I hear that someone's digital photo has not been processed at all, since that's impossible. It might have made slightly more sense in the days of film, but digital photographs have to be processed from the sensor data. There's no such thing as "no processing". All it means is that you left the processing to the camera's (or computer's) automatic choices. Of course, "processing" is a slippery slope if you're doing it manually and there is admittedly more room to make images that diverge from realistic, as in some of my reflection photos.

Reflections

An assortment of reflection photos from the last little while. I took 'em where I found 'em - ponds, lakes, ocean, swimming pools ...

















As usual with my reflections, these are more heavily processed than most of my photos. Many of them don't look like much before adjustments. When I'm taking them I have to imagine what I can do with them.

For more photos see all 25 in this album as a slideshow or overview

Parting Shots

Final batch of photos from our trip, I promise!

While we were waiting for the bobsled races in Whistler I couldn't help noticing the frost on the snow and trying to capture it. It's always tricky taking photos of white on white! Good practice for back in Saskatoon.



Back in Vancouver we walked from the train station to Terra Breads for supper and on the way back I quickly pulled out my camera to capture the view. (handheld at 1/30 at ISO 7200 - the wonders of modern cameras!)



As usual we were treated to great scenery on the train ride. But the windows were dirty, and the train moving, and I resisted taking any photos, knowing they wouldn't turn out well. But the sunrise was fantastic and I gave in. And yes, the sky really was that colorful!



This one had a bit of a surreal feel to start with so I reinforced that with the processing.



And finally the sun began to peek over the horizon.



The sunrise lasted a long time - these shots were taken from about 8am to 9am.

For more sunrise photos see all 11 in this album as a slideshow or overview