Zwolle

I shot this photo in Zwolle, Netherlands when I visited there as part of an educational exchange a few years ago. Zwolle is a pretty city, with a city center surrounded by a star shaped canal.

Broken Angel

Here's an oldie. I'm guessing it was taken around 1988-89. I had been out shooting in a cemetery, and wandered into an old section with graves of children. I liked this gravestone with the broken wing. I shot it as is, then hung a white glass mask (bought at Pier 1) on it and shot it a second time.

Plastic Army Guy Shadows

The title of this post explains the photo. I took a couple of plastic army guys and stuck them on an old grill in my backyard to photograph, and liked how the shadows looked better than the figures themselves.

It Snowed Today...

One of those snowfalls with absolutely no wind, so that the snow stuck wherever it landed.


I shot a few photos in my yard, here's a couple of them to hold you until I return home in a few days.

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays III

Another photo of an overdecorated yard. Some people just don't know when to stop!

Happy Winter Solstice!

Starting today and continuing for the next six months, every single day will have more available light than the one before. Hallightlujah!

Happy Holidays II

Here's another holiday photo of an overdecorated yard. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I like it when people mix religious and secular decorations.

Happy Holidays!

In December, once the semester has ended and I have a little free time, I often unwind by driving around shooting holiday decorations. I like when I find a house that really overdoes it, especially when they mix religious and secular decorations.

This was shot a couple of years ago. This house had at least 50 plastic figures scattered all over the front lawn and driveway.

For All Occasions

I shot these with an old Kodak 35mm camera last summer. It's a crumbling sign painted on the window of Rainbow Cone, a southside Chicago institution. That camera easily allows for multiple exposures on a single frame of film. The second photo is a double exposure of the same scene.

Marin Headlands

Here's another photo taken in the Marin Headlands. I love the seagull on the left side, it makes the image.

Marin Bunker

Today's photo was taken at the Marin Headlands just north of San Francisco. I love it there, there's amazing scenery and views of the city, and old army bunkers to explore. I hope to make it a regular part of my visits to San Francisco.

Budapest

I shot this photo in Budapest in August, 2007. I'm standing near the castle atop the hill on the Buda side of the Danube river (Budapest was once two cities, Buda and Pest). The tower off in the distance is the houses of Parliament, and the bridge on the right is the famous Chain Bridge.

Our Lady Of The Freight Train

I shot this photo a couple of miles from my house while on a bike ride. I often carry my toy Holga camera with me when I'm riding, it's lightweight and tucks into my bike bag easily. I like this photo, the Mary next to the train rumbling down the tracks makes an interesting scene.

In The Fields

I shot this photo a couple of years ago on Christmas Day. I was walking around in the fields near my mom's house, shooting anything I found interesting. That's my mom's house in the background of the photo.

Wish I Were Here

We're having the first (and I hope the last, but that will never happen) super cold spell in Chicago now. The high today was in the single digits. Ugh.
Here's a photo taken someplace warm: Maui. This is the east side of the island, near the town of Hana. I wish I was there now.

SF Chinatown

OK, done with collages for a while. Here's a photo shot with my Holga camera. It was taken in San Francisco's Chinatown a couple of years ago.

Are We Alone?

Another recent collage, made last year. I like this one, it's simple and funny.

Like A Mushroom

This one defies explanation. Made in 1984 or so. The small text on the lower right reads "like a mushroom", Joyce muttered.

Untitled Collage

I made this collage last December, the same night I made the one two posts ago. This one was accidental, I had the eyes and lips placed so they actually looked like a face, but bumped it before I had glued them down. I liked they way they rearranged themselves better.

The Difference

Here's an oldie-one of the first collages I made, dating back to 1984. It's made from images taken from a 1950's era homemaker's magazine. I wish I had known what I was doing back then-I made this collage on construction paper, not the most archival material to make art with. I also had it laminated at some point, probably not a good thing.

Oh What Fun

This is a small, postcard sized collage I made last year while visiting my mom over the holidays. We made collages to keep ourselves entertained, not an easy task in rural mid-Michigan.

Mix Tape II

Here's another collage made as the artwork for a mix tape. I'm not sure when I made it, but I can be pretty sure it was sometime in the late '80's or early '90's.

Mix Tape

A few weeks ago, I posted collages to this blog over a few days. People seemed to like them, so here's a few more. This one was made sometime in the late '80's as the cover to a mix tape. I made it for a friend, but never got around to giving it to him.

Used Cars

Here's another photo taken with my Nishika camera. This is a sign for a used car lot in Blue Island, IL.

Chinatown Storefront

This photo was shot a couple of years ago with my Nishika four lens camera. Nishikas are cheap plastic cameras which take four photos using two frames of 35mm film. Processed in the right way, they can be made into lenticular prints. Like all my toy cameras, I usually shoot expired film in my Nishika, and welcome the color shifts and other imperfections.

Bryce Canyon

Here's a photo shot in Bryce Canyon National Park in 2001. Bryce Canyon is beautiful, one of the most interesting and unique places I've visited.

This might be my last post for a few days, I'm visiting family for Thanksgiving.

Unnamed

I bought a new computer a couple of months ago, and the updated version of iPhoto that came installed on it has face recognition built in. It went through my entire library of photos, and tagged what it thought were faces. That lead to the occasional humorous tag in which inanimate objects were marked as faces. Here's two of them. I thought they were funny, so I took screenshots of the photos with the tags. The faces are labeled 'unnamed' because it didn't recognize a specific face.

The first photo was taken at Children’s Fairyland, a trippy amusement park for young kids in Oakland, CA. The bottom one is a photo of one of the cool vintage arcade games at Musée Mécanique, the only thing worth seeing on Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco.

Russian Hill

I took these photos while standing about halfway up Russian Hill in San Francisco last summer. The hill off in the distance is Telegraph Hill, topped by Coit Tower.

Institute Model

This is a photo of a model for the new wing of the Art Institute of Chicago, which opened last spring.I've posted some of these before, as well as cyanotype prints made of them, both on this blog and on Lightbender, my other blog. I'm feeling a bit lazy (it's 12:45 am, and I'm about to put the Mac to sleep and go read for a while), so you'll have to look through old blog posts if you're interested in seeing them.

Now that the new wing is open, I want to go photograph the actual space (as opposed to the models). I'll get to that before too long, after I finish a half dozen other projects I'm working on at the moment.

Colorful Fascade

This building is in the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco. There's quite a few brightly colored buildings in that area of the city. Shot with my Holga toy camera in October, 2007.

Wolfy's

I went to dinner tonight at the best sushi place in Chicago. I brought my camera along, because I knew the restaurant was about a block from this hot dog place, with the great sign. The letters on the sign change colors, here it is with the other color lit:

Wolf

I shot this photo at the Exhibit Museum of Natural History in Ann Arbor, MI a couple of years ago. I actually like the reflection in the glass in that photo. I made a Polaroid lift of his photo, here's how it turned out.


I like the reds better in the lift, but the turquoise tones in the reflections are lost, which I don't like so much.

Downtown

Here's a shot taken in Chicago's Loop with my Holga camera a couple of years ago. It was shot with expired black and white film (I usually only shoot with expired film in my Holga). I added the color in in Photoshop. I made a print of this and took it to The Netherlands the last time I was there, and gave it to my friend Els.

Crater Lake, Backlit

People seemed to like the photo of Crater Lake I posted last week, so here's another one. I'm facing west in this one, on the east side of the rim. It was in the afternoon, and the sun was getting low in the sky. I love the reflection on the water, and the backlit western rim of the crater.

Factory Panorama

Here's a panorama of an abandoned factory on the far south side of Chicago. I've shot there a few times over the past year, but haven't been there since late last Spring. I flew over it on my way home from vacation last summer, and it looked like the building had been completely torn down. I should go out there again and take a look.

Wooden Shoes

I shot this photo at a souvenir shop in Amsterdam a few years ago. The center of the city, like any spot heavily visited by tourists, is full of souvenir shops selling mostly crap. Fortunately, in Amsterdam, one only needs to walk a few blocks to escape that madness.

Hoge Veluwe National Park

I shot this photo in Hoge Veluwe National Park in The Netherlands when I was visiting there as part of an educational exchange in 2005. Hoge Veluwe is a really interesting park. Most of it is off limits to cars, and there are dozens of white bicycles available for use for free to ride around the park. In the center of the park is an art museum, the Kröller-Müller Museum, which has the second largest collection of Van Gogh paintings (after the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam), and a huge and wonderful sculpture park with modern sculpture scattered throughout a wooded area. It's definitely worth visiting if you're in The Netherlands.

Dupont Circle

I was in Washington DC this past September for the wedding of my partner's sister. The wedding and our hotel room were both in Dupont Circle, a pretty Washington neighborhood that I had never visited before. I shot these photos out of the window of our room on the morning of the wedding.

Argyle St.

I shot this with my Holga camera a couple of summers ago. It's part of a fence surrounding a parking lot just off of Argyle St. in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood. Argyle St. is a three or four block stretch of Vietnamese restaurants and groceries (there's an occasional Chinese business there as well). Does anyone know what this character is?

Crater Lake

Crater Lake National Park, shot last July.

Rainy Chinatiown Night

I happened to be wandering around Chinatown on a rainy night a couple of weeks ago, and shot a few photos for the heck of it. The spots you see in the photo are drops of rain on my camera's lens.

Milkweed

A photo of dried milkweed pods, shot where I found them, in a field behind my mother's house on Christmas day a couple of years ago.

Waterlooplein

I shot this photo in Amsterdam when I was there in 2007.It was taken near the Waterlooplein square where the Amstel river runs through the city.

Chinatown Alley

I like this shot of an alleyway in San Francisco's Chinatown, even though there's nothing really special about it. Maybe it's the everyday street scene feeling that I find appealing.