San Francisco Houses

This row of houses in San Francisco is in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. I've shot the same houses on a couple of different occasions. Like so much of the city, they are photogenic. This particular photo was taken with my Holga toy camera when I was visiting there last October.

Winter Sunset

Chicago has returned to stifling, hot, swampy weather again (it happens a few times every summer). Making it even worse, our air conditioning was broken today, although a repairman did make it out.
Whenever we have one of these miserable hot, humid spells, I post a photo of something cool. This is a photo of a sunset in winter, taken from the front yard of my mother's house a couple of years ago.

Zwolle

This lovely photo was taken in Zwolle, The Netherlands last summer. The historic city center of Zwolle is surrounded by a star-shaped canal. This photo was taken along the canal.
Zwolle is a really pretty city, but it doesn't seem to have a great deal of tourism. I find that a little surprising. I've visited several mid-sized cities in The Netherlands, and found Zwolle to be the most pleasant one.

Fern

I shot this photo in Maui two years ago when I was there for the wedding of friends of mine. It was taken along the road to Hana, an all-day trip through amazing jungle scenery. These ferns grew everywhere on that side of the island, and I loved how they looked.

O'Hare Bleak

It's been a while since I posted a photo taken with my Nishika camera, so here's one.

This was taken in April, '07, in a parking lot close to one of the runways at Chicago's O'Hare Airport. The plane coming in for a landing, the telephone poles, and the large expanse of gray, grainy sky combine to create a bleakness that I like here.

I tried a cyanotype print of this image on neon green fabric, but I didn't really like the way it turned out. This photo needs all of the gray to be effective.

Reflected Sky

I shot this photo in Evanston, Illinois a few years ago. The highly reflective surface of the building reflects the clouds really well. I like how the organic shapes of the clouds contrasts with the geometry of the building.

Exhibit Museum

I'm leaving today for a few days in Ann Arbor, MI. I'm helping my mom and sister run their booth at the huge summer art fairs that the city hosts every year.


The Ann Arbor art fairs are fun, but exhausting. This year, temperatures are supposed to be in excess of 90 degrees F every day, making sitting in a booth in the sun a miserable experience.


Because I won't be posting any photos until Sunday or Monday, here's a few I took last year at the Exhibit Museum, the natural history museum on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor. It's located just a couple of blocks from the art fairs, and is a good way to beat the crowds, heat, and general craziness that they bring.

Beautiful Garden

This is the garden of my friend Els, who lives near the city of Apeldoorn in The Netherlands. The gardens at her house are amazing. They are large and well tended, but not overly manicured, so they have an almost natural look. It's exactly how I like a garden.
I met Els while taking part in an educational exchange a few years ago. She is a fellow art teacher, at the Netherlands equivalent of a community college. For the exchange, she came to the US, stayed with me, went to my classes, etc. and saw the sights around Chicago. The following semester, I did the same in The Netherlands. It was a great experience, and Els and I have remained friends.

Through A Screen

This photo was shot about a week and a half ago, while I was visiting The Oriental Institute at The University of Chicago with friends who were in from out of town. In one of the rooms, they have light dampening screens installed which allow a little natural light in, but which also give a sort of diffused, texturized look to the scenery outside. I liked the way that looked, so shot through one of the screens to make this photo.

The Oriental Institute is a really wonderful museum, by the way. They have an excellent collection of antiquities from the near east, and there are some breathtaking pieces there. It's a little-known gem among Chicago museums, and I highly recommend a visit.

Peace Tower

Today's photo is of the Peace Tower in San Francisco's Japantown, taken with a Holga Camera. It is one of two photos I took of the tower with the intent to make a mosaic image from them, but I like this individual photo better than the two stitched together. Japantown in San Francisco is mainly a mall, but it's a fun place to visit. I've visited there every time I've been in San Francisco.

Sea Stack

This blog has been more like 'a photo every other day' lately. I've been busy, not forgetful. The kind of busy where I'm away from my computer for long periods of time, and when I'm actually on the computer, have a dozen other things to do.

Anyway, today's photo was taken in the summer of 2005. It was shot in Olympic National Park, in Washington state. This is the western edge of the park, where huge sea stacks line the Pacific shore. It was amazingly beautiful there. We were on this beach right around low tide, and there were tidal pools full of starfish and anemones. It was also right around sunset, the only time I've seen the sun set over the ocean (I have seen many sunsets over Lake Michigan).

Frosty Cool

Last month, I posted a photo of frost on a very hot, humid day here in Chicago. Today is shaping up to be another of those (It's humid, but the predicted extreme heat doesn't seem to have hit yet). So, here's another photo of frost.

This one was taken about the same time as the last one I posted. We were suffering through a few days of severely cold weather, and many of the windows in my house had frosted over. The blue color of this photo is natural-I didn't play with the color. It was a bright sunny (but frigid) day when I shot this, so I aimed the camera high and let the blue of the sky reflect in the frost patterns.

Blogger is Fixed

Last night, I spent 20 minutes trying to upload this photo, but kept getting an error message. It seems they've solved the problem, so here goes.

I took the two photos that make this mosaic when I was visiting San Francisco last October. I shot a lot in Chinatown on that trip. I was staying with my sister. She lives in North Beach, which is right next to Chinatown, and nearly every time I left her apartment I wound up there.

I like the way these photos go together, and planned on making a gum bichromate print of this image. I never got around to that, however. I just got busy with other things. I might still make a gum print of this image. I think the colors would work well in in a gum print, and every time I look at this, I realize that I still like it.

Blogger Is Broken

I've spent the last 20 minutes trying to upload today's photo, but I keep getting an error message that says "This image could not be uploaded due to an internal error." I even tried a different image, fearing the one I chose was a corrupted file, but that one wouldn't upload either.
I'll try again tomorrow. It's nearly 1 am now, and I'm tired of trying.

Art

This photo was taken in Chinatown here in Chicago a couple of months ago. The sign in it's entirety reads 'Overseas Art & Travel', and it looks to be a travel agency, although for as long as I can remember, I've never actually seen a business of any sort open there. I like the sign and the tile below it, it looks retro and Asian at the same time. I'd love to see the sign lit up sometime.

This was shot with my Holga toy camera, and like most of the shooting I do with that camera, was shot on expired film. I like running old film through the Holga. Holga photos are supposed to have imperfections, it's part of the Holga aesthetic. Expired film adds a few more of them to the mix. This particular film was transparency film, and it gave some pretty strong color shifts.

Devil Boy

I posted this photo to JPG Magazine last August, and have received some interesting comments on it there. Not so bad for a photo that I took when playing around in my studio one day. It's actually pretty simple. A small plastic devil was placed on top of a page from a magazine, and shot using a macro lens. That's it.
I liked someone's suggestion about turning it into a photo essay, and may get around to doing that someday. It's not a question of interest, it's an issue of having more ideas than time to develop them and work with them. That's good, I'd rather have too many ideas than not enough.

Cashier

Missed a day, I have guests in from out of town, and have been busy having fun with them. I might miss another before the weekend is over.
This photo was taken at Mistuwa Marketplace, a Japanese grocery in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. I don't get there too often, maybe a couple of times a year. It's about an hour's drive from my house in the southwest corner of Chicago. It's a fun place to visit, and has a great food court. A small housewares shop that I liked, and a store that sold anime toys that were located there have both closed, but it's still enjoyable.

Light Pole

Back to Chicago for today's photo. This one was taken on North Ave. in Old Town a few years ago while waiting for friends to meet me for dinner.
There's not much to say about this image, actually. I just shot a photo of a sticker on a light pole. I like the photo, though.

Communist Sculpture Park

Another one from Budapest. When Communism fell in Hungary, all the Communist statuary was pulled down. Rather than destroy them , thowever, they were stuck in a dusty park at the edge of Budapest for the delight of tourists.
It is delightful, at least for Americans who never had to actually live under Communism. While it is a tourist site, the presentation is pretty understated, as is the gift shop, which amounts to a few items in the window where you buy your entrance tickets (I'm still kicking myself for not buying the South Park inspired t-shirt they sold there).
I could go on about this park and how cool it was, but instead, here's a link to their website, full of pictures and info.