Two Ducks on the Skokie Lagoons

It's the end of December and it feels like the beginning of spring: no snow and

 almost 50 degrees. I thought that ducks usually migrate during the

 winter-- we were taught in kindergarten that there were only five species 

of birds that stay around during winter (which didn't include ducks)-- but 

there're still a few meandering around the Skokie Lagoons.

I dropped by the dam on Willow road yesterday to get some 

landscape shots of the trees while there weren't

 any clouds and I happened to have my telephoto lens out when these two 

mallards were floating by, so I snapped a few picks and they took off and I 

snapped a few more, trying to use a panning technique. A higher aperture 

gave the ducks and the water a more detailed/vibrant tone. 

Winnetka

Taken in December 2011

Harms Woods Landscape

The bike trail that snakes through the Cook County Forest Preserve is

 extremely scenic, and in autumn the forest is full earthy colors. While biking past 

a field, I decided to set up my mini tripod and snap a few high aperture/slow

 shutter speed landscape shots of the trees.

Obviously the top photo was heavily photoshopped. I singled out

 each section and messed with the lighting/coloring to make everything

 stand out more. There are some some messy spots, but it makes for 

a picturesque background. I have more meticulously edited version that I ended up 

donating to a silent auction. Here's the original and the more edited one (respectively):

Glenview

Taken in October 2011

Deer on Train Tracks

Since Chicago was at the forefront of westward expansion there're
 a lot of trains that run through the North Shore, and some tracks that
 aren't in use any more go by the forest preserve next to the
 Northfield campus of New Trier. Occassionally some white tailed deer
 (Illinois' state mammal) will wander by looking for something to munch on.

Deer are very shy, and both of these photos were taken as the deer 
were slowly meandering away from me. The tracks are a bit odd 
but they fit with the industrial sites in that area, which include an electricity 
and salt plant.

Northfield

Taken in June 2011

Fallen Tree in Northfield

In winter the trees in the forest preserves around the Chicago River get a

 very dead look to them and I suppose the cold makes them brittle

 because after storms a whole bunch of them usually fall over

 onto the bike path/horse trail. 

I found this giant fallen tree while looking for things to

 practice photographing along the horse trail by Winnetka Avenue.

 It was cloudy and I took this photo at dusk so the lighting was

 pretty difficult to get, and I had to climb onto the tree to

 get an adequate angle. Looks sort of zoomorphic.

Northfield

Taken in December 2011

Community Garden in Evanston 2

 Here are more flowers from the garden in Evanston. I don't usually like to

 photograph planted flowers or zoo animals but this garden seemed 

unique enough and I was pretty bored anyway.

The f/1.8 and the sun really helped bring out the distinct tones of the flowers.

Evanston

Taken in October 2011

Community Garden in Evanston

While looking for things to photograph along the McCormick Boulevard Sculpture Park

 I discovered a small community/school garden across one of the bridges. 

Everything there had a really distinct rainbow-like color. I have a bunch of 

other photos of other plants that I'll be posting. 

Both of these pictures were taken with my f/1.8 and it was a really sunny day. 

I'm pretty surprised that the photos turned out to be so colorful without any editing. 

Evanston

Taken in October 2011

Forest and Beach by Fort Sheridan

The beach behind Fort Sheridan is a cold bleak patch of iron, rocks, and sand with 

dense forest leading it off into the horizon. The birches are part of Fort

 Sheridan's nature preserve and I think the trees in the background may

 be in Lake Forest. It was late fall, so a few trees still retained some color.

It may not look like it, but I took these photos on the side of an almost-vertical

 slope where I held onto a small dead fern so that I wouldn't plummet down to the

 beach. Still worth it. The best photographs often require some sort of risk to take.

Fort Sheridan

Taken in November 2011

Bell Tower on Winnetka's Village Hall

Winnetka tries to mimic an olde-timey European style of architecture 

with their town hall (and several churches) by having a bell tower, columns, and a building made out of bricks.

Since the clocks have been set back an hour it's been increasingly difficult to

 take photos after school because by the time I get to a place to photograph

 it'll already be past sunset. On my way home from school on Friday I 

snapped a few photos of the Winnetka Village Hall as the sun was

 receding over the horizon.

Winnetka

Taken in December 2011

Waterway by New Trier

 A continuation of the Skokie Lagoon bike trail goes by the Northfield 

campus of New Trier and stems through the woods behind it, which 

might either be Harms Woods or part of the Skokie Lagoons, I'm not entirely

 sure. The trail runs along a river- I think it's the Chicago River- which

 is closed off from the trail by a wall of trees. 

There isn't much to see by the river other than mud and 

overhanging trees, and it's also pretty dangerous to

 walk through because of loose branches and slippery mud-covered slopes.

Despite these hazards, I thought it'd be interesting to see if there'd be

 anything worth photographing. I found this picturesque waterway at sunset, 

and though the lighting was bad and I was forced to sit in the mud to get a 

low angle without slipping into the river, I was still able to get a few nice shots.

Northfield

Taken in November 2011

Lake Michigan frozen at Sunset

After that huge blizzard last winter a thick layer of snow and ice formed 

over Lake Michigan. 

There's a few beaches within walking distance of my house so 

I went over there and took pictures until sunset.

Winnetka

Taken in February 2011

Tower in Fort Sheridan

The half of Fort Sheridan that isn't a giant field is a military base containing

 a bunch of uniform houses with a towering phallic structure protruding out

 of it all. I think it's a gift shop, though I'm not entirely sure. Everything behind

 it is painfully artificial, but this architectural structure is pretty unique.

I've only brought my camera two out of the many times that I've biked

 to Fort Sheridan, and the day that I took this the sky was particularly

 blue and the sun was in a particularly good position for photographing the tower. 

Fort Sheridan

Taken in  June 2011

North Shore Channel

 This body of water is pretty mysterious and awkwardly located. The channel

 begins at Wilmette Harbor in front of the Baha'i Temple and runs along

 McCormick Boulevard through Evanston and merges into the Chicago River.

 I've biked through the statue park on McCormick Boulevard a bunch

 of times and by what I can deduce from the excess of trees and a barbed

 wire fence lining the channel is that there probably isn't any practical purpose

 to it beyond it being a way to transport sewage. 

I was biking back from getting a snickerdoodle at a bakery on

 Central Street and I was crossing over the channel and the dense dark

 trees and the sawdust sky looked worthy of being photographed.

Evanston

Taken in September 2011

Dragonfly in Winnetka

 Next to Crow Island Woods is a newly developed pseudo-swamp area 

 with a boardwalk leading through it. It has a wetland-like climate, and

 there's all sorts of bugs hiding in the reeds.

I took these pictures over the summer. There were a lot of dragonflies

 then. They're mostly in fields and swampy areas. 

Winnetka

Taken in July 2011

Sunset at Skokie Lagoons

The Skokie Lagoons are somewhat ugly year-round and I never really

 thought of taking photos there until several months ago. I guess this looks

 a bit more like a transcendentalist painting than how the Lagoons actually

 are, but I like that. The exaggerated colors, the calmness of the birds (or the

 single bird in the top photo), and the vibrant water all give a strong

 argument for Winnetkans to visit the Lagoons; which they should because

 it's nice to have nature like this within walking distance of your home.

Throughout fall I biked to the Lagoons to practice landscape photography. 

They were taken in autumn during sunset, which is

 the perfect time for photographing trees. 

Winnetka

Taken in October 2011

Colored Tree in Crow Island Woods

 There's a particular lack of photos of this nice little patch of forest in Winnetka,

 and I'd like to make a contribution. For some reason the ivy and trees began having 

pastel-like colors in early autumn. The leaves have fallen off since then, but

 it was really something about a month ago.

I took these with my 50mm f/1.8, but used a smaller aperture. The effect the

 lens gave it looks awesome. I'm not sure whether any of my other lenses 

would've made the colors stand out as much.

Winnetka

Taken in October 2011

Paths in Fort Sheridan

I biked to Fort Sheridan for my first time a year ago and I remember 

there was this massive vacant field with a sign that said it would be

 developed into a nature preserve next year and I thought I wouldn't go back but since 

then I've biked there quite a few times because it's a nice destination and only about an hour away.

The nature preserve itself is a giant prairie field next to a small forest and is

 circumvented by a few quiet trails. I used a very low aperture

 to get the blurred effect.

Fort Sheridan

Taken in November 2011

Skokie Lagoons before Winter

Since I hadn't photographed anything for about a week I biked down to the

 Skokie Lagoons yesterday to get some landscape shots. The sky was 

overcast and the trees were barren, and it looked like the end of fall and

 the beginning of winter. There weren't any leaves or birds, and everything

 looked much more dead than it did a few weeks ago. A bunch of people

 were fishing though, so there was probably more life in the water.

I recently read about the "Rule of Thirds" and so I wanted to try it out 

with landscapes. The top photo turned out much bleaker than I intended

 and the log doesn't add much, but the bottom photo captures the 

barrenness of the trees well enough. 

Winnetka

Taken in November 2011

Leaves in Elm Park

I live a block away from Elm Park, which is a small field by Skokie School, so I walked over

 there one weekend when I was bored to photograph the trees/leaves. 

For these photos I went up to the end of a branch and

 shot at a f/2.8 to make the leaves look isolated but have some presence.

Winnetka

Taken in October 2011

Path in Crow Island Woods

Behind Crow Island Elementary School is a small woods with a dirt 

path circumventing through it. Just as autumn started the leaves

 in Crow Island Woods began having more crayon-like colors. This

 looked pretty neat at a f/1.8, which gave the leaves a more saturated 

and shadow-strewn texture.  

The path itself had overgrown shrubs on the side and I thought

 that getting a low angle with one of the colorful trees in the background

 would give the photo a more surreal/comforting edge to the woods. I used to

 walk through the woods when I was in elementary school, so maybe with

 this photo I was trying to capture the nostalgia of when I was much shorter

 and found the woods to be more mysterious of a place.

Winnetka

Taken in October 2011

Snapping Turtle at Skokie Lagoons

There's a snapping turtle at a nature preserve in Glenview, but

 otherwise I had no idea that these lived in the Skokie Lagoons. I imagine they 

don't move around much, and this one seemed pretty unfriendly. A group of bikers 

had gathered around the turtle and thought it was neat so I got off my bike and 

snapped a few photos (pun). It was somewhat large and ugly and encountering

one of them was probably pretty rare.

I had my f/1.8 while I was biking along the trail, so that's the aperture

 I used, which explains the blur. It usually works well when I take close-ups 

of wildlife that aren't too far away. 

Glencoe

Taken in October 2011

Buffalo Creek Reservoir

While driving home from my photography hike through Long Grove
 last week I spotted a forest preserve in Buffalo Grove that looked
 interesting enough to stop and photograph. It ended up being a reservoir
 for Buffalo Creek, a branch of which I had just photographed while in Long Grove. 

I recommend local photographs stop by there sometime: it's very scenic. 
I took these photos with a wider lens to capture all of the landscape, but it looks 
a bit crowded and dull. Also it was very cloudy, so the lighting was poor.

Buffalo Grove

Taken in November 2011

Covered Bridge

A week ago I drove to Long Grove with my camera because it

 seemed like it would be an ideal place to photograph in autumn.

 It ended up being a bit of a tourist hot-spot, so I hiked along

 the secluded "Covered Bridge Trail" on Buffalo Creek and

 got a few alright pictures of a (covered) bridge that leads into the historic mall area.

I used my 50mm f/1.8, which may explain why only the

 subject is in focus. I was too lazy to go back to my car and get a wider lens

 and I like the effect lower apertures have. For the top photo I went as

 close to the creek as I could-- which was on a small patch of leaves and mud-- and

 photographed some  dried grass and leaves in front of the bridge. 

For the bottom photo I was on the trail and photographed the bridge

 peeking over dense prairie grass. I included some sky, but as you can

 see it was getting cloudy and the lighting got progressively worse for

 taking pictures as the day went on.

Long Grove

Taken in November 2011

Tower/Lloyd Beach at Night

Today while biking home from school when it was just starting to get dark out 
I  decided to go out to the pier at Maple Beach to see if
 there'd be anything worth photographing. The lights at the boathouse
 in Lloyd Beach and the tower at Tower Beach reflected

 off the lake so I tried taking some long exposures with 
low apertures to get water blur and to be able to see the tower at

 night. Using a high aperture had a nicer effect- the lights on the water

 were fuzzier and everything was more in focus, but using a low aperture

 made the sky more vibrant. 

Here's when I exposed it for a full 6 seconds:

Winnetka

Taken in November 2011

Mini Stream in Harms Woods

 Yesterday I went back along the dirt paths to that stream in Harms Woods-- which I 

discovered is actually part of the Chicago River-- in hopes of photographing 

autumn leaves on trees. All the leaves had fallen to the ground and

 the trees looked a bit barren, so I looked for things to take pictures 

of in the underbrush; which is how I spotted this little makeshift stream

 that's comprised of large pebbles and leads downhill into the river. 

There's a sense of tranquility and solitude "bubbling brooks" have,
 and I tried to capture that by shooting at f/1.8, getting as close as 
humanely possible and including the sunset in the out of focus background. 
I think it looks nice. Here's an aerial view:

Glenview

Taken in November 2011

Leaves in Fall

 When I biked to Harms Woods two weeks ago I had planned on

 photographing leaves that had changed colors from directly below

 with my telephoto lens and sort of creating this series where

 all the photos would have the same composition and lighting but the

 leaves would be different. It didn't quite work, but I got some

 nice close-ups of autumn canopy.

Glenview

Taken in October 2011