Indy 'n HDR

Before they came down, I got a chance at the beginning of January to get some pictures of the holiday lights strung from the top of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on the circle. I shot it once before, but wasn't happy with the results. Much too flat. Of course now that I'm using HDR.....

 Some Colts pride in the lower right corner.

Didn't help them much, as that was the night

they lost to the Jets in the playoffs.

Image copyrighted by Erik Markov

 Image copyrighted by Erik Markov

Having the fisheye definitely helped in some of the tight angles and to capture much of the circle in one image.

I probably took this one too far in HDR but it's fun to experiment.

Image copyrighted by Erik Markov

 I also turned around for a shot of the capitol down Market St.

 

 Something about this conjures up the phrase

'The road to hell is paved with gold and good intentions."

Image copyrighted by Erik Markov

The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not 

necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Comments containing off-color or hateful language may be removed.

University of Chicago

While in Chicago over the holidays, I also spent a few hours at the University of Chicago. It's gotten to be a bit of a cliche I think to take photos there. There are photos of the campus all over Flickr, lots of blogs. Yet, it was still a place on my list to check out as I had never been there before.

A walkway outside Bond Chapel.

Image copyrighted by Erik Markov

   

Image copyrighted by Erik Markov

Since it was over the holidays there weren't many people on campus, which meant I had it mostly to myself. Also meant a lot of the buildings were closed. Will have to go back as there were a few other places that looked interesting which I couldn't go into.

 A bulletin board on campus with scraps

of notices and staples left over.

 Image copyrighted by Erik Markov

Bond Chapel.

 Image copyrighted by Erik Markov

Was an okay day to shoot, not the best but not the worst. It's December in Chicago so gray skies are the norm. Also why I played around with the HDR, the un-doctored images are not all that interesting. Some snow falling would have been something to play around with, Mother Nature wasn't cooperating.

 

I think this would be a cherub,

kinda hard to tell with the vines.

Image copyrighted by Erik Markov

The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Comments containing off-color or hateful language may be removed.

Morton Arboretum

Been a while since my last post, hasn't been anything too exciting of late. Spent the week between Christmas and New Year's in Chicago. Christmas day spent some time visiting family in the western suburbs. Was right near Morton Arboretum in Lisle, some place I've always wanted to visit but never had the opportunity to. It happened that the grounds were free for the holiday.


Shot a ton of pictures in 90 minutes, had a couple keepers of snow covered trees that were interesting. But for an arboretum it was very random. A lot of the arboretums I've been to have very planned out, orderly designs, this seemed more natural. I was looking for those tree lined roads, trees standing alone in empty fields. Maybe it was something about the winter weather that encouraged me to look for that stuff, don't know; the first few things I shot didn't overwhelm me.

That's why I was happy when I found this stand of spruce trees. Something about spruce trees, standing very straight and tall; I find them really interesting to shoot. There are so many ways to approach them.

One day I took a little side trip to Lake Catherine, which is in Palos Heights, IL. It's a man made nature preserve and education center. A man made waterfall that feeds into a small lake. It's a nice area to take a short walk, see some ducks and geese.

 

Nothing too out of the box, just a nice way to spend the holidays taking pictures and being creative. 

Back in a few days with more from Chicago.

All Images copyrighted by Erik Markov