Cook County
Sculpture by Anish Kapoor
“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
Is anyone having a great morning today? I’m very excited to be back today and to start sharing some photos again with you guys. Past month was great and I got to pack almost a month of traveling. Even though I left the Chicago for a few weeks, I feel like in some way, Chicago never left me. For a brief moment every morning when I wake up, I instinctively felt as I was still here in a way. So for this post I’m going back to one of the cityscapes corners. What do you think?
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Are you in for a tip? After finding the right location, the big challenge was catching the right storm, with enough water action to get this frame. Shooting with 1200mm lens with the 40mph winds is an adventure by itself! But we will touch up on that some other time. After I settled down and dialed in all my settings all I had to do is to shoot in a burst mode to capture enough waves for the final blend. TIP: after catching enough waves, all you have to do is pick the best frames and after layering them in Photoshop, select all of them and change the blend mode to “lighten”. That will bring all the water to be visible in the same time having this dramatic effect. It would be nice and much easier to capture all of this in one frame but unfortunately our side of the lake never gets that dramatic. Having snow and some birds in the final frame were just a cherry on a cake :) What do you think?
I’m not sure what is going on? We seem to get a glimpse of spring every third day and the rest of the week just feels like winter. Tulips were out for a few days and I thought I should board the tulip train and capture the frame that feels like spring while I can. That sure didn’t last long. What do you think?
Are you going out? People often think that I’m crazy when I spend all day out on this subzero temperatures while the snow storm is in full force or when I’m happy to see a frozen lake :) I always find myself struggling to explain that feeling to someone who doesn’t have the same passion in life. What usually helps is when I show the final result of that effort but seeing how my passion ignites the passion of that someone is by far the most rewarding thing of all. What do you think?
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“You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own. It’s just a matter of paying attention to this miracle.” – Paulo Coelho
Can you believe that September is almost here? While enjoying the last few days off I stumbled upon this part of the town. This is another time blend that took around 2h from start to finish and I’m really happy with it! What do you think?
Another interior shot, only this time in color. This basilica is one of my latest accidental discoveries. It is located just outside the downtown area and it is a perfect place for taking some interior shot for those who like doing that. Since the temperatures are sky high I like taking some indoors location a killing time time during the day. What do you think?
Guess what? Yes we are still in Chicago and you are looking at The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Center for the Musical Arts on the @northwesternu campus in Evanston. It’s a work of art by @goettschpartners. This is from last May when we were enjoying a quiet jazz performance. To be quite honest Evanston is packed with things to do and places to see and it’s very peaceful if you want to get away from the city just for a moment. If you want to learn architecture & street photography please join us at Out Of Chicago Summer Conference. Use code “CHICAGO” to get $400 off. What do you think?
Good morning/day to you, hope your week is going well? Here in Chicago we are anticipating Spring Equinox. Shooting in the city all the days coming up to it, and after it really gets fun. Deep defined shadows, strong pronounced highlights and sharp angles, it’s a dream for architecture photography. What do you think?
Do you plan your shooting? For me it all depends but most of the time I do. For this particular location it took me 6 months since the first time I saw the edited photograph to the moment I actually found it and than I decided to wait another 2 months for the snow to fall so I can try to capture what I envisioned in the beginning. I was praying that by the time I get there after the snow fall I will manage to catch the trail without any footsteps on it. Luckily I was there in the right time. What do you think?
Monochrome anyone? It’s been a while since I posted something in BW and I was craving that feeling all this time. I will use this opportunity to throw a new idea out there. Since I’m working in a background on a group of monochrome edits for a while I’m contemplating on starting another channel on Instagram dedicated only to my BW work. I just want to separate the work so both feeds have a cohesive look and the similar theme. I’m leaving on a month long trip in a few days and I will take that time to think hard on this subject, I would also love to hear your thoughts. I’m excited for so many reasons and I hope that I will manage to come back with some great photography. While away I might not be able to be as active as I want to on social media platforms so hopefully we can continue this journey, with the same excitement and intensity, when I come back. What do you think?
The Cloud Gate, The Bean.... Iconic spot in Chicago. I took my time with this one. I went there numerous times over the corse of 4 months. Mornings, evenings, etc. I finally settled down on this framing. I knew that I wanted to have traces of people included so I went for the longer exposure. I didn't know that while shooting I was able to capture these great clouds this late after the sunset. The result is 220mpx pano and this representation of the vision I had. What do you think?
6-picture panorama stitched with Hugin, panini projection
What is your approach? Just curious, do you have any specific plan when it comes to posting on Instagram or any social media platforms? I personally have non. The only thing a like to do is to post one black and white image after four color images. Editing in BNW makes me break my usual routine and I think it makes my feed looks nicer. What do you think?
Instagram: www.instagram.com/jl.dumas 500Px: 500px.com/jldum
Chicago: www.flickr.com/photos/jldum/albums/72157706071866535 Architecture: www.flickr.com/photos/jldum/albums/72157669768177122 Travel: www.flickr.com/photos/jldum/albums/72157667373386054
“Nothing burns like the cold. But only for a while. Then it gets inside you and starts to fill you up, and after a while you don't have the strength to fight it.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
Flamingo, created by noted American artist Alexander Calder, is a 53-foot (16 m)[2] tall stabile located in the Federal Plaza in Chicago, Illinois. Flamingo, créé par le célèbre artiste américain Alexander Calder, est une structure stable de 16 m (2 m) située sur la Federal Plaza de Chicago, dans l’Illinois.
Instagram: www.instagram.com/jl.dumas 500Px: 500px.com/jldum
Chicago: www.flickr.com/photos/jldum/albums/72157706071866535 Architecture: www.flickr.com/photos/jldum/albums/72157669768177122
Are you in for a tip? Stay with me for a sec. It’s been a great winter so far in my opinion and we had enough snow and ice here in Chicago to get some great shots. In one of my previous posts I covered one way to shoot the snow. My second tip is to shoot the snow at a high shutter speed even in low light conditions. To get a higher shutter speed I usually crank up my ISO settings sometimes even up to 6400. My camera is pretty good even at that ISO settings and chances are great that yours will be too. Don’t be afraid to shoot like that because the snow will register as grain in the camera too and you will not be able to distinguish those two in the final result. What do you think?
“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” - Amelia Earhart
Fog or no fog? That is always a good question. I say YES! After an exhausting day at work I was tempted to stay at home and get some rest, but… I just couldn’t resist the temptation to go out and try to catch couple of more angles from the frozen river bed. The temperature went up really fast that day and I was afraid that I will miss a chance to capture what I wanted before ice melts away. To my big surprise the fog was rolling in slowly and I was ecstatic to be there to capture it. What do you think?
Do you have any big plans for the weekend? We personally don’t have anything major in plans but we will do something small and interesting. So until we come back with some new images, hopefully, I had to post some new work from Chicago. This is a frame from a few weeks back when the evening was nothing short of a magical. We even got to capture the amazing “Union Pacific” Engine. What do you think?
I think that we all need a little more sunshine? The weather is pretty gloomy lately here in Chicago, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying a day out on board CFL Cruises. The dramatic conditions were actually a perfect fit for photography at that time of the day. Chicago Architecture Center and Chicago’s First Lady crew kept the atmosphere interesting all the way. This is another shot from that day taken with my infrared rig. What do you think?
I’ve heard stories about weather in Chicago, and today I was able to experience so many extremes weather wise that I had to stay outside the entire day and shoot more than 10 hours, on several different locations. I was deliberating on going back to this location tonight because of the storm that was brewing. Boy, I’m glad I did! In just under two hours I was able to witness the crazy thunderstorms , double rainbow and the sunset that was beyond anything I saw before. I hope I was able to manage to capture everything and I can’t wait to show it to you. For the beginning, this is a lucky shot of the lightning that was an opening for this crazy evening. What do you think?
“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.” - Buddha
Do you shoot panos? In situations like this one where the distance between background and foreground is far too broad, shooting a vertical pano is the easiest way to get everything in the frame. It is also the easiest way to get everything in focus because depth of field is changing drastically. To make everything come to life I manually blended this 80mpx pano. What do you think?
“What struck me, as I walked up and down the history of painting, was how much it was about fading light, and that the history of painting is also the history of the loss of light. For slowly but surely… the light is squeezed out of painting to become finally a mere candle-flicker. A world once full of light becomes a world of shadows.” – Ian McKeever
Anyone using Google Earth? Since I moved to Chicago that is my number one tool for researching, finding and planing all my trips. It just makes the life easier and my rate of finding hidden corners is way up! This bridge was under the construction since the day one. So I had to wait this one out to for quite some time. Finally the bridge is done so I venture out looking for a decent framing to check this one off of my bucket list to. What do you think?
The J.P. Morgan corporate challenge was on that day, hence the "Run Chicago Run" on the building. 6-picture panorama stitched with Hugin, Panini projection
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Instagram: www.instagram.com/jl.dumas 500Px: 500px.com/jldum
Chicago: www.flickr.com/photos/jldum/albums/72157706071866535 Architecture: www.flickr.com/photos/jldum/albums/72157669768177122
Are you excited? I know I am because we got to see snow for a short period of time today. We went out to spend some time trying to get that hero shot :) We had an early start today and we just kept going through the night. But before we dive in to what happened today I thought I should warm up my feed with this colorful sunset from last year! What do you think?
"Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some." - Charles Dickens
Are we done or not? God only knows how excited I get just thinking about catching the good sunset over Chicago sometimes soon! But until that happens I’m just gonna have to be happy with what I have! I know it’s a classic shot but I had to have it redone and what better time to do it than while this crazy fog was covering downtown. What do you think?
Any big Friday plans? We don’t have one neither but hey, weather is going to be good and we will be out. I guess that can be considered as plan as well. This is a throwback from a last years Feb weekend :) What do you think?
Gray again? This time last year we were literally frozen, colder than Antarctica with the wind chills down to -54F (-50C). So I would be lying if I said that I didn’t secretly hoping for something similar this winter. Crazy, right. It was cold but it was the most fun we had any winter by far. I know the weather here can change overnight but so far it’s very underwhelming! What do you think?
La Cloud Gate (littéralement « Porte des nuages ») est une sculpture urbaine de l'artiste britannique Anish Kapoor située dans le Millennium Park à Chicago...
Instagram: www.instagram.com/jl.dumas 500Px: 500px.com/jldum
Chicago: www.flickr.com/photos/jldum/albums/72157706071866535 Architecture: www.flickr.com/photos/jldum/albums/72157669768177122
How often do you use long exposures in your photography? Since recently I discovered a new passion for minimalistic, abstract photography and incorporating movement in that style of work is very important for me. So I find myself using long exposures quite often in one way or the other. I love to use them to break the symmetry in the frame and as a strong point of interest. What do you think?
Do you like to shoot landscapes? This Is one of my favorite spots here in Chicago. Since there is not that much opportunities for me to shoot landscapes in the city I often venture to this botanical gardens. I’m always very excited to visit and photograph this place under various light conditions. Today was very cloudy and cold day. It wasn’t crowded because of the Thanksgiving holiday so I seized the opportunity to take some photos without any interruptions. Due to the lack of color and contrast infrared was my choice for todays shoot. It helped with both in my opinion. What do you think?
What is your perspective? I get this question very often and it’s usually combined with how do I get the very clean edit at the end. So I decided to share some technical details in this post. This particular shot was taken at Wolf Point and it was my third attempt to try to capture the whole vista in one frame. I’ve tried few different approaches, using 3 different lenses, 3 different vantage points but the only one that worked was using the hyper wide 10mm from Voigtlander. The first lens was tilt shift, shifted up but it was introducing to much distortion at the end panorama. I was to lazy to spend very long time just trying to correct it. Second lens was 16mm wide and I wasn’t able to fit the left building in the frame. For the blending I again used few different exposures from few different moments in time and the best light from all of them to achieve the look I wanted. All the exposures were manually blended using luminosity masks for the seamless blend. All the detail extraction was also applied using the similar method. At the end I spend the longest trying to decide is the final image worth posting or not. I’ve been holding to this one since June. What do you think?
I think that the most important thing about any art is the sense of escape. What do you think?
Have you been chasing light last night? I sure had my hopes high and at the end in the typical Chicago style sunset changed it’s course and the color didn’t hit with the full potential. But I am happy with the final result. As you can see I went with the long exposure this time just because I was able to find my ND’s after six month search. And guess what? They were hiding in the plain site all this time :) What do you think?
Are you too surprised? I’m still not sure what is going on here! I can’t believe that I just spent the entire day in Wisconsin at the end of the January wearing just my west! Temperatures this year are very much surprising. Until I get beck with some winter wonderland shots I will leave you with this frame from Chicago. What do you think?
Thanks to all Phoide contributors to Cook County!
Most notably Nenad Spasojevic, Jean-Louis Dumas, Joao Eduardo Figueiredo, Andrey Sulitskiy, Romain Pontida and Giuseppe Milo.