Moon on a Cloudy Night

Last night while walking my dog I noticed that the moon had a giant ring around 

it so I went home, got out my camera, and took a few pictures from the roof. I'm

 guessing it happened because of all the condensation from the cold front from the 

storm on the east coast.

Although the moon is a great subject for photography, it's very difficult to 

incorporate it into a landscape. Usually, since the moon is the only source of light at night, 

it ends up as a bright orb without any distinct features. It kind of makes me appreciate 

Ansel Adams' photograph "Moonrise" just that much more.

Winnetka

Taken in October 2012

Autumn Trees in Fort Sheridan

A few weeks ago I biked to Fort Sheridan on a chilly and overcast day. The rolling 

hills of sandy prairie grass contrasted the wall of warm autumn trees, and a few white

 birch trees were buried in the colorful canopy. Since my only lens was a telephoto, 

most of my shots were uncomfortably narrow.

Plants make for interesting subjects, especially when singled out from a mass or utilized

 as an element in a simplistic design. When crammed into a frame, their organic form

 and diverse textures/heights/hues/shapes create a world separate from the one we live

 in--natural and yet unfamiliar.

Fort Sheridan

Taken in October 2012

Shore of the Skokie Lagoons

After photographing Elm Park with my new Holga camera, I headed to the

 Skokie Lagoons and walked around the shore to take pictures of trees and plants.

Like the photos in Elm Park, the majority of the photos I took ended up being out of 

focus. There were the only two that weren't blurred. I really like the low depth of field.

Taken in October 2012

Winnetka

Leafless Trees in Elm Park

Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to photograph autumn more diligently than

 I did last year, so now I'm stuck with cloudy afternoons, leafless trees, and dried 

leaves covering the ground. Nevertheless, this makes for good black and white 

photography, so I quickly headed over to Elm Park with my new Holga to take a few 

pictures of the looming shadows of trees and mounds of leaves.

I bought a Holga camera two weeks ago but I hadn't realized that it only took 120mm

 film so a week later when it arrived I ordered a 35mm adapter, which arrived a week 

after that. Yesterday I grabbed a role of film from Walgreens that was lying around 

and quickly headed over to Elm Park to get some shots and see if I had made a wise 

investment. The vast majority of the pictures were out of focus or very poor quality, 

but the several that worked out have a very appealing quality to them. The depth of

 field is extremely narrow, the contrast is very strong, and sunlight bleeds over the rest

 of the image so the result is dreamlike and vintage-looking.

Winnetka

Taken in October 2012

The North Shore Channel

The weather was nice today so I biked to Skokie to take pictures of rowing for 

the paper. Somehow I ended up riding in the coach's motorboat so that I could

 get a better view of the rowers, but after about fifteen minutes I got enough shots 

and looked for other enticing things to photograph. I was in the middle of the North

 Shore Channel, the leaves along the bank had all changed color, and some bridges

 made for nice landscape subjects.

Bridges are aesthetically interesting structures. The more rusty and industrial

they look, the more interesting they are. I'm not quite sure why, but I saw a bunch of 

industrial bridges around Skokie so I might come back to take more pictures.

Skokie

Taken in October 2012

New Trier on a Rainy Day

For an article on an outbreak of whooping cough at the Northfield campus of 

New Trier, I biked over there to take a picture that would capture the morose feeling 

that I attach to the school. Thematically the article called for a more daunting or dismal 

portrayal of the school, and coupled with my memory of freshman year of being

 constrained in a concrete prison I tried to utilize the rainy day, the desolateness, 

and the giant, enclosing, geometric concrete structures to compose a photograph that 

would work both as a scene of a whopping cough outbreak and as a nostalgic reminder 

of freshman year.

Since I initially had no idea what the photo was going to look like, I walked around the 

campus and found interesting angles that indicated movement but was bereft of human

 activity. This created a sort of zombie-like effect, which perfectly illustrates a landscape full 

of disease.

Northfield

Taken in October 2012

Leaves from Below

Yesterday while writing an essay I noticed that it was sunset so I picked my camera 

and went into my backyard to take photos of the underside of leaves. After taking a few 

color shots, I switched to black and white and tried to single out segments of branches 

that minimalistically hung in front of a monotone sky.

These were experiments, and they turned out nicely. I think that the plain white background 

makes the isolated subject more interesting. Finding low-hanging trees and pointing up 

to shoot is an interesting technique.

Winnetka

Taken in October 2012

Night at the Winnetka Train Station

A year ago, while walking back from school with my camera (I had covered 

an assignment for the school newspaper that day), I took out-of-focus photos of holiday 

lights and street lamps. The bokeh effects were neat, and while crossing the bridge over

 the Winnetka Train Station I set my camera onto the railing and took several slow 

exposure photos of the train and cars. After a police car slowly approached me, 

I decided that what I was doing was probably sort of suspicious and 

continued towards home.

Most of the time artificial light isn't optimal for photography. It'd duller than

 sunlight and it lacks any vitality. Occasionally it can be sort of calming, 

especially in the case of night photography. In the winter, since it was usually

 night when I would leave school, I would try to be technically creative in the way

 that I captured with light what to me was a pretty mundane walk home. The only 

sources of lights were street lamps, vehicles, streetlights, and the city in the distance.

Winnetka

Taken in December 2011

Autumn along the Des Plaines River

While biking down the Des Plaines River Trail, when the forest gave way to a view

 of the river, the forest floor was suddenly covered in plants sprouting yellow leaves. 

The trees stood cleanly like stone cylinders in a cluttered wall next to the path. With 

sunlight piecing through the yellow canopy, the entire scene literally had a golden glow. 

It's an idealistic spot for nature photography, and sure enough there were other photographers

 scouring around for a unique shot. I leaned my bike against a tree and started composing

 a shot of the leaves.

Since it's been cloudy, with a lot of my other autumn photographs I simulated sunlight

 by using a slower shutter speed. The result was paler light and muted colors. This day was 

sunny and it's apparent that sunlight holds an important role with nature landscapes. The 

contrasting of the tree with the higher up canopy in the first photograph and the fragmented

 light in the bottom photograph illustrate that.

Northbrook

Taken in October 2012

Autumn Leaves in Watersmeet Woods

I woke up before eleven today so I biked to Watersmeet Woods in hopes

 of catching any birds that would be out there, but the flock of wood ducks that I had

 seen last time flew away the moment they caught sight of me and it was raining so 

most other birds were roosting high up in the trees. After a few failed attempts at 

photographing birds, I turned my telephoto lens towards vertically oriented plants.

Like trees, leaves can be potentially interesting subjects. When captured at different 

perspectives, with various depths of field and distance, leaves can be portrayed almost 

as their own microcosm of a landscape. That's why I particularly like photographing 

dried leaves in black and white-because up close there's a texture that you wouldn't

 normally be able to see which has a natural but otherworldly aesthetic to it--like an

 astronomical outgrowth or similar to a mountain landscape.

Northfield

Taken in October 2012

Autumn on the Des Plaines River

Before turning onto Willow Road on my way back from the debate, I passed 

over the Des Plaines River and noticed that the trees next to the road were particularly 

colorful and the sun was at a position such that they had a nice reflection on the water. I 

descended onto a small, unkept patch of grass next to the river and took a few landscape shots.

At a certain point I lost the Des Plaines River Trail and had to bike on Milwaukee Avenue 

and later the highway part of Willow Road. They should really at least have a dirt path next 

to those roads for bikers trying to get from one end of the forest preserve to the other. The 

way it is now, it's sort of dangerous.

Prospect Heights

Taken in October 2012

Autumn in Camp Pine Woods

Yesterday I biked to Oakton Community College to watch a forum (similar 

to a debate) of two candidates for Congress. I brought my camera with me, but 

they didn't allow us to take pictures. I biked home on the Des Plaines River Trail, 

and since the woods were notably yellow and the sun was still out, I walked around 

and took pictures of trees and the leaves.

If I were to rank all of the forest preserves I've photographed based on how 

awesome their autumn is, Fort Sheridan would probably be first (because it's very 

orderly and has geographic diversity) and Camp Pine Woods would rank second. 

Despite several piles of sticks and trash, the forest was particularly open and clean. 

The colors were also pretty remarkable. The yellow leaves in the canopy and on the 

forest floor had a radiant glow to them. It's very quaint, especially with the small

 cobblestone bridges and the Des Plaines River running alongside it. 

Des Plaines

Taken in October 2012

Woodpeckers in Fort Sheridan

While hiking around Fort Sheridan I heard a barking sound from one of 

the trees and spotted an unusually large woodpecker with a red head (cleverly 

named red-headed woodpecker). Luckily, the unique woodpecker remained in view

 for a short while with an orange tree behind it, and I was able to walk away with a 

photograph I was satisfied with. At the other side of the prairie preserve I heard another 

barking sound and again spotted an unusually large woodpecker, although this time with 

only a red spot on its head (red-bellied woodpecker) and also perched much higher up.

I was trying to rationalize why I liked bird photography the other day, and I came to the

 conclusion that  there was nothing specifically about birds that I like but rather the idea of 

capturing an image that you normally wouldn't be able to see because birds are small and 

usually keep there distance from humans. There's also a "collector's"element to it where there's

 nice to discover a bird that I haven't photographed before.

Fort Sheridan

Taken in October 2012

Autumn in Fort Sheridan

 It was very cold and overcast today and I'm burnt out after a busy week but

 I have a four day weekend and I wanted to take advantage of that extra time

 so I biked to Fort Sheridan. I brought my telephoto lens in hopes of spotting some

 interesting birds (and I did--I'll post them later) but the leaves on all the trees 

changed colors so dramatically that I decided mostly to capture the overwhelming

 Pollock-like splattering of the many differently hued trees in the vast forest. Out of 

the several forest preserves I've visited to photograph autumn, Fort Sheridan so far has 

been the best because of its size, colors, and diversity.

Since I brought a telephoto lens my photos were forcefully cropped more narrowly, and

 I've noticed--both in my photography and others'--that narrowly cropped pictures of

 autumn trees or clutters of leaves work better than generic autumn landscape shots

 without angled perspective. Adding subjectivity to the framing of a subject already 

reminiscent of a painting results in something more emotionally displaced but sensually

 appealing than anything with a more standard point-of-view which has the ability to 

connect with the viewer on a comfortingly realistic or less-fantastical level (i.e. there

 isn't any geographic context for the shot).

Fort Sheridan

Taken in October 2012

Autumn in Crow Island Woods

Crow Island Woods is a fantastic place for autumn nature photography. Towering

 red, green, yellow, and orange trees create a botanical ceiling to a dense, compact 

field of wildflowers and shrubs with a wood-chip trail circumventing it. This terrain 

provides for hundreds of potentially great photographic subjects which as a whole 

are quite overwhelming and individually are very interesting.

Last year I took a bunch of pictures of Crow Island Woods during autumn to capture 

all the changing colors and the overgrown foliage, and this year I went back to try to 

do the same exact thing but also emphasize the stage-like nature the dense layer of

 shrubs by singling out the brightly colored subject with a shallow depth of field. While 

also skewing perspective and scale, this renders the photograph more like a case in a

 museum, exhibiting an artifact, than a depiction of a landscape or scene.

Winnetka

Taken in September 2012

Autumn in Watersmeet Woods

I biked to Watersmeet Woods in Northfield at sunset and thankfully someone heeded

 my advice from earlier this year and created a trail made of hay along the river so 

I wouldn't have to be harassed by spiders hiding in the tall grass (although there 

aren't any bugs out at this time of year anyway and one has to walk through tall grass

 to get to the trail). Like any secluded part of the forest, there was much more wildlife--

I counted ten wood ducks, two bucks, and a turkey vulture--and the terrain was unique.

 The tall grass surrounds the trail on all sides with a few dots of yellow wildflowers,

 and opposite the ditch containing part of the Chicago River is a open woods hued with

 autumn orange. A completely different scene than the dreary mud-heap I discovered

 back in March.

I've officially stopped using my 18-55mm and instead have used the Sigma 18-50mm

 as my go-to wide angle lens. The larger/lower aperture setting of f/2.8 makes a surprising

 difference by making lighting and colors softer and more saturated. It also works better

 in situations with dim lighting. An example of all this working towards the photographers

 benefit is the bottom photo: clearly there wasn't much much light (look at how overexposed

 the sky compared to the brightness of the tree), the different colored leaves stand out, and

 the tree itself is isolated through depth of field.

Northfield

Taken in October 2012

Autumn on the Chicago River 2

While looking for a part of the forest with access to the river yesterday during sunset, 

I happened upon this small opening. Both banks of the river are raised above the water, 

one side being much taller than the other. The picturesque scene was colored by vibrant 

autumn trees and the cliffs tangled with fallen leaves and tree roots.

While crouched in the mud in an overgrown and dimly lit part of the forest patiently 
waiting for the 30 second exposure to finish, I realized that I really enjoy landscape 
photography. I was thinking about how I could make a living off of this, and it seems
 like most landscape photographers put a lot of time and effort into editing and printing 
their images. So investing in good print paper, a good printer, and a good location would 
be first steps towards becoming a professional landscape photographer.

Morton Grove

Taken in September 2012