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?

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning.” - Albert Einstein

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?

“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” - Amelia Earhart

“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”

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?

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

“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

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

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

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?

“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

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?

I usually don’t post two photos in a row with the same subject but this event was very interesting and rare so I had to find a different location and get one more shot. The colors cast from the peer lights was to harsh and the color did’t work as on the previous shot so I decided to go BW in this case. 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

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

"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?

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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

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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?