Sep
08
Montrose Beach 9/6/11
Mar
05
Chiditarod 2011
Click for more Chiditarod pictures!
Another year, another great event!
The creativity gets better every year and there sure was a lot to see this year. I’m not sure of the total number of teams this year but it had to be a lot of ‘em!
Not only is Chiditarod a pretty cool race it is also a fantastic food drive. As of March 4th, $13,615.00 had been raised for the Chicago Anti-Hunger Federation! Pretty sweet eh?
I met some pretty cool people today and sure made a lot of pictures, that’s for sure. Click on the Black Swans to see a few more pictures from the day. I hope you like them!
I’m looking forward to next years race already!
Jan
25
Not Quite an Epic Fail – Chicago Bears 2010
Well, it’s January and the Bears season is over. Again.
The Bears were beat by a pretty good team Sunday afternoon in the form of the Green Bay Packers by a score of 21-14. No real surprise there. Green Bay came into town favored by three and a hook even though they were the sixth seed in the playoffs. That’s gotta tell you something.
After last years press conference with the 3 Stooges a bunch of lower coaches got sacked and Lovie fired himself as Defensive Coordinator. The search was on for an Offensive and Defensive coordinator. Lovie wanted his pal Mike Martz but had to go through the motions of interviewing the few candidates who dared show interest in working at that cesspool in Lake Forest. Martz was hired and no one showed any real interest in the DC job knowing that they would be Lovie’s butt puppet and the likelihood of a short contract offer due to the impending lockout in 2011. Mike Tice was brought in to coach the offensive line. Rod Marinelli was eventually promoted to Asst. Head Coach/DC.
The Bears looked like a train wreck waiting to happen in the preseason. The offensive line seemed incapable of stopping a pass rush. QB Cutler got hit. A lot. And when he did have time to throw the ball, his receivers didn’t seem to know the routes. It didn’t look like anyone but Martz understood the play book. This had the makings of a very long season.
It was starting to look like Martz was going out of his way to get Cutler killed. He was getting sacked on a regular basis and kept getting back up. He was finally knocked out of the game against the Giants with a concussion. Lovie and Martz would have put him back in there but the the medical staff pulled him. This kind of crappy play continued on the offensive side of the ball until the bye week. Read more…
Jan
05
Vivian Maier – An Amazing Story
Self Portrait
What an amazing woman!
Vivian Maier was a nanny in Chicago. Apparently Vivian always had her camera with her. While that alone doesn’t seem all that out of the ordinary, the fact that she left over 100,000 negatives, 3000 prints, and quite a few rolls of undeveloped film when she passed in 2009 is extraordinary.
John Maloof discovered her work after purchasing a box of prints at an auction. Upon seeing the uniqueness of those prints, he set out to find the rest of her collection. John now has the pleasure of cataloging unique photographs from the 50′s through the 90′s. No small undertaking, that’s for sure!
Starting this Friday, an exhibition of her prints will open at the Chicago Cultural Center and run through April 3rd. If you live in the Chicagoland area or are going to be visiting, you should really check this out! This is a “Don’t Miss” exhibition. I for one, am looking forward to seeing this one.
Here are a few links you may find interesting:
- Vivian Maier – John Maloof’s blog
- Vivian Maier Photography – Some examples of Vivian’s work
- The Life and Work… – Chicago Magazine article
- Vivian on YouTube – A great slideshow
- Chicago Cultural Center – Vivians Exhibition
Oct
20
Sometimes You Just Have to Wonder…
An interesting article showed up in my news feed this morning from the Chicago Tribune. It seems that the Chicago Public School won’t let the produce, grown by the students in urban gardens as part of their curriculum, in the school cafeteria.
CPS says it is due to insecticides used by the students. Sounds like a good argument until you find out that the company that supplies all the healthy food in the schools is not held to the same standard.
While I’m not all that shocked by anything CPS does anymore, this has to rate pretty high on the stupid scale. Even for them.
Aug
18
Trains, Planes, Eyeballs, and Fountains Oh My!
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Geez, the Air Show was this weekend already! It seems summer just started and it’s already ending. At least it was cooler by the lake! This has been one hot summer.
We caught the train to go downtown and were pleasantly surprised to find it was an express and not the usual milk run. The train was packed though. I think a lot of folks who got on after us had to stand. Once downtown, we hopped on the el and headed north and after a quick stop at McDonalds, we headed for the beach.
We have been going to the Air Show for years and I always find it interesting in one way or another. I’m not really thrilled by the military planes but the stunt guys are pretty cool. Pretty nuts too. They do some crazy stuff.
This year however, the dragonflies caught my attention. There were hundreds of them. And they weren’t small ones either! Almost every picture Kieran and I made had a couple of them in the frame. Whenever there was a break in the action I would try making a picture of one. Not an easy task I gotta tell ya! Fun though. Then there was the kid digging a big hole in the sand. He spent a lot of time digging and when I went over to talk to him I saw that he was packing the sides so it wouldn’t collapse. Smart guy! North Avenue Beach was packed but it didn’t feel packed. If that makes sense. After the show there is usually a bigtime traffic jam at the bridge going over LSD and this year traffic slowed a little but never stopped. That was almost as nice as an express train! Read more…
Aug
11
Family Night With the Bears
Click to see a few more pictures
We haven’t made it out to Bourbannais for Bears camp yet so we decided to head up to Soldier Field to see the Bears.
Family Night turned out to be more fun than I thought it would. There was a band playing outside the stadium and quite a few vendors to check out.
We had nosebleed seats but they weren’t all that bad. Good view of the field. Watching the practice was sort of like watching paint dry from that distance though. It did get a little more interesting once they started the 7 on 7 and 11 on 11 drills though.
There was a fireworks show right after the practice. Great show. It was right on top of us! We were in the north end zone and they were launching them from right outside the stadium!
We parked in the south lot and it was total gridlock. Everyone was in good spirits ‘cept for the woman who kept laying on her horn. I thought it was just someone messing around but when she got near us you could clearly see she was dead serious on getting out of that lot. She must not get out much.
Overall, it was a good Friday night. I hope we can get down to camp so I can get some better pictures of the players. We’ll see….
Jun
13
Bluesfest 2010
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Friday we ventured downtown to check out the Blackhawks Rally with a couple million of our closest friends. After the confetti settled, we meandered around the Loop for awhile in hopes of finding a McDonalds that wasn’t bursting at the seams with hungry Hawks fans.
Found one!
After lunch, we headed east to Grant Park to check out my favorite festival of the year, Bluesfest! After spending 3 1/2 hours wandering around in the heat it was nice to sit down in the park and listen to some good music. Bluesfest has always signified the beginning of summer for me. The crowd was light but it was starting to fill up a little. It was pretty early as far as Bluesfest goes. Sorta nice though compared to the rally. Couldn’t move around much at all there, that’s for sure!
I didn’t make that many pictures this year. I was more interested in people pictures for the rally and the fest this year and kept my eyes open for potentially interesting frames at each venue. Bluesfest always has an ample supply of interesting people so it’s not that tough to find a few!
We ended up staying around for only a couple of hours but it was quality time, that’s for sure! I’m glad we stopped by on Friday. Saturday had to be a wet one.
I started uploading my pictures to Lightroom as soon as we got home. I pretty much filled 3 cards and Kieran filled 1. It was going to take a while!
Helloooooooo Summer!!!
Jun
12
The Blackhawks Bring Home the Cup!
Click on Picture for more!
What a day!
We arrived in the Loop around 8:30am for the Blackhawks Rally scheduled to kick off around 10:30. Obviously a late start buy hey, at least we got down there! I was watching the news before we left and Wacker & Michigan was already filling in so we didn’t even consider trying to get up there.
Found a spot near State & Washington and set up camp on the curb. And waited. And waited. It was getting really warm out but we didn’t care. This was gonna be a party!
A little after 11:00, the parade kicked off. The Loop hasn’t seen anything like this since 2005! Ticker tape floating down and a roar from the crowd that could be heard blocks away.
All the players were on top of double decker buses and while a few of them didn’t look like they had slept since the win, they all appeared pretty overwhelmed by the crowd.
After all, it’s not every day 2 million people come out to cheer for you!