PhotoAbuse – The Blog

I was assigned the Regional playoff game between Eisenhower and Andrew High Schools on Saturday. Great day for baseball that was for sure. Warm with lots of sun.

This was the first game this year I went to an Andrew game. I had heard from various people that they had another good ball club this year. They sure showed it today! A couple of towering home runs, some good base running and a pitcher who was throwing smoke led them to the Regional title.

They play again Wednesday.

Whoa! This has been a quick year. Seems like St. Patricks Day 2009 was just last week and here it is again!

It seems that no one celebrates on the actual day any more though for some reason. On Saturday I went to 2 parades. One in Oak Forest, and the other in the Brookside Glen subdivision in Tinley Park. It was raining for both of them. But on the upside, my camera still seems to work and my bags will eventually dry out.

The parade in Oak Forest was a total surprise. I have lived in and around there for most of my life and cannot remember them having a parade on Cicero Avenue since I was a little kid.  This year, they closed Cicero and put on a great parade!  Even in the drizzling rain a boatload of people showed up. I thought that was very cool.

The parade itself was impressive. 90+ floats and lasted over an hour. It had everything you could ask for….Irish dancers, local businesses of all kinds, some good looking floats, politicians, and sheep. There were all kinds of things going on after the parade at the local pubs and restaurants too. Pretty cool if you ask me. Everyone seemed to be having a great time. I really hope that they keep doing this. It was the best thing Oak Forest has done in years. A tip of the hat to them! Read the rest of this entry »

This was a fun weekend! I like variety and this weekend I got to make pictures of a bunch of different events.

Friday night was the Lincolnway Central vs Lincolnway East Hockey game. Also Senior Night for these schools. Once again, Bobby Hull was there signing autographs. I had made an 8×10 print of a picture of Kieran and Bobby from last year for him to autograph. He got a kick out of it and Kieran was pretty pumped about it! I also made a picture of the 2 of them for next year!  He is a very nice guy.

I went last year and it was packed. This year was no different. What’s cool about this is the energy level. These schools take hockey pretty seriously and it shows. The crowd was really into it and so were the players. There was some serious banging going on from the 1st faceoff on. Some great goaltending on both ends but in the end, East took the trophy. Thanks to Head Coach Bill Hetfleisch, I got to spend the game on the bench and had a great ongoing conversation with Ed Herbert, the goalie coach, between shots. Great night to say the least!

After the hockey game I shot over to the Charlie Horse to see a few people that I went to HS with. That was fun! I hadn’t seen a few of the girls since HS and it was great to see them again. No pictures there though. Just a little catching up!

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It was that time of year again! Homecoming weekend is a lot of fun. I shot the Tinley Park football game Friday night and the kids there were having a lot of fun and really got into it. Everyone was picking them to lose the game but that was not part of the plan for Tinley. They won the game 12-6, crowned a new Queen and King, tailgated in the parking lot, and most of all, didn’t seem to mind that it was raining the whole time!

Saturday, I had the opportunity to shoot the Lincoln Way Central Homecoming Parade. These kids were just as pumped as the Tinley kids. LWC got everyone involved in this one. All the youth cheerleaders and football players were represented in addition to the LWC cheerleaders, players, and just about anyone else from LWC that wanted to participate. Like Tinley, everyone had a whole lot of fun even though it rained pretty hard at times.

Hopefully next year there will be clear skies!

You can see more photos here.

 

It wasn’t like there wasn’t anything to write about this month. I’m just a slacker I guess. Perhaps I should get in the habit of multi tasking and write a little while I’m watching the Blackhawks play.

March is a pretty unpredictable month around here. Warm one day, freezing the next. We got a taste of the freezing weather on the 2nd day of the month when we went to the Tinley Park St. Patricks Parade. To say it was nippy would be an understatement, that’s for sure! Cold and windy but still a lot of fun. Tinley Park puts good parades together.

 

 

On the 14th, we went to another St. Patricks parade and this one was a small neighborhood parade, also in Tinley Park. It was in a subdivision and every family that participated had their own banner and did a couple of loops around the neighborhood and were cheered on by the rest of their neighbors. There was a fire truck and a police car to make some noise and it all ended up at the Gibbons house for the post parade party. They had a tent for the adults and a couple of those inflateable jumpy things for the kids. The weather was sunny and mild. Good day for a parade and it looked like everyone was having a blast. This was the first one and surely not the last!

 

 

 

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Well, the holidays must be near because Santa has stopped in Tinley Park. He stopped in last Sunday and must have liked the reception he got because he is back again! It might have something to do with all the lights in Zabrocki Plaza. I’m sure he spotted it as he flew over. Hard to miss!

The Holiday Market is organized by the Oak Park Avenue Mainstreet Association and they do a great job at making sure everything runs smoothly. They have put together an entire weekend of events ranging from carriage rides to a craft show in a very large heated tent. There is food, entertainment, crafts, and even a chance to get your picture taken with the man himself.

I have been taking photos there for a local newspaper and have been having a great time. To say there have been a lot of photo ops would be an understatement! It’s a good thing that most of the event is going on inside though. It has been a pretty cold weekend. As I type this, it is 7f out! I feel for the carriage ride drivers, they are pretty much stuck outside. The same with Mark and Julie. They brought a couple of reindeer to show the kids and looked pretty chilled as they were packing up for the day. The horses and reindeer seemed ok with it though! With this kind of weather, fur is good!

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All in all, it was a fun 2 1/2 days! The kids seemed to be having a great time and there sure was a lot going on all the time.

Let the Holidays begin!