Sun, Shadows, and Sears

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Originally the Indianapolis Sears Roebuck & Co. building on the corner of Massachusetts Ave, E. Vermont and North Alabama Streets.

I was wondering why this photo seemed to get regular hits on my flickr account? I checked the flickr reference stats and a website by “agilitynut” with a collection of “Indiana Art Deco Architecture” has a link to my photo saying just “For more, see This Website”

I didn’t take this photo with any intent for it to become an example of art deco architecture. I walk past this building everyday without taking much notice but one fine day I just thought it looked “cooler” than usual. I grabbed the camera and walked back to take a shot. At the time I remember thinking ‘this is awkward, everyone on sidewalk is looking at me wondering why I am taking a photo of this and this photo is probably going to look stupid because I am down here on the sidewalk and that is way up there and the building will look like it’s falling over backwards’… Fortunately, some playing with “Filter” & “Lens Correction” tricks in PS CS5 came to rescue this from a terrible case of parallax.

So what to learn… if the lighting looks cool it’ll probably be cool in the photo too, and, when struck that something has a special look to it, a little extra effort to get a shot may be worthwhile…
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Fountain Photos

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While looking back at some older pics posted to flickr I noticed this one had the 4th highest views. This fountain is my favorite in downtown Indy. On nice days I try to arrange trips to walk past it whenever I’m in the area. This was f/2.8, 1/320th, ISO 100, and looking north on the mall toward the Indiana War Memorial. I was intentionally using a longer exposure to emphasise the water droplets because I had taken a very similar photo 9 days earlier that I wasn’t happy with. That’s pretty much the way I learn. Try it, if it doesn’t work, try to figure out how to improve it, then try again…
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9 days earlier, f/5.6, 1/1600th, ISO 200.
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Crepuscular Rays

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Another of my favorite “rays” type photos; this time at McCormicks Creek State Park. Early morning sunlight filtering through colorful fall leaves and the smoke of wet wood campfires. I saw this and went to get the camera. Several other campers stood and stared for awhile as I took a few shots then they went to get cameras too… It would be nice to imagine this was somewhere deep in the woods but it’s hardly remote. I took this standing in the street in front of the bathhouse surrounded by hundreds of campers, yappy dogs, and diesel pickup trucks. “Crepuscular Rays” is the official term.
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Vincennes Photos Published

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Photos of the new Vincennes Roger’s Clark Middle School were published in “American School and University-Learning by Design” magazine.

I took these at two different times; on a blazing hot summer day as construction was finishing up preparing for school start-up in and again after a few weeks of school. This is an interesting project for many reasons but one of them is that it was fun to photograph. Lots of color, big swooping terrazzo floor graphics, and nice details. It’s also very energy efficient which is why it was awarded “Outstanding Project” in the Sustainability and Learning” catagory. Here’s a link to the online digital edition of the magazine http://issuu.com/stratton/docs/lbd_fall2011?mode=window&backgroundColor=%23222222 . The Vincennes article is on printed page 38 or page 40 of the thumbnail pages.

More photos of this school can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/schmidtassociates/sets/72157626830637829/

Vincennes

Bee’s Knees

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According to Wiki, the origin or meaning of “Bee’s Knees” is sketchy but I heard that phrase often growing up. Anyway, here’s a photo of some bee’s knees…

Going back through some old photos and came across this one. It has a bit of a story so thought I’d share it.

On my birthday a few years ago and I was playing with a new birthday present; a Micro-Nikkor 105mm VR lens. We made a trip to Brown County State Park and I was trying to find something to shoot (and being amazed by the ‘thinness’ of the macro depth of field). I’m down on my hands and knees shooting a little wild flower when along comes this bee. Surprised, of course I started shooting like crazy and most shots went wildly errant. This one was salvageable and received more comments than most on flickr.

It may be my best example of ‘even a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut’ shot because it was so totally unexpected. I would never have ‘tried’ to create this photo. I am allergic to bees and have been know to jump off of ladders in reaction to bee encounters. Just looking at this photo still gives me chills and a sense of wonder that I didn’t just chuck the camera and run…

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Urban Times – Mass Ave Tree Lighting Photo

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A photo I took of the tree adjacent to our office at Schmidt Associates has been published in Urban Times. Two credits here: 1. to Brian because I shot this (handheld) with his 70-200 2.8 VR lens, and to Jennifer for Photoshop cleanup and removal of some icky stuff in the photo.

Soon there will be lots of similar trees on Mass Ave as other businesses add lighting prior to the Super Bowl. There is a link to the online article below this snip.

Capture

http://www.urbantimesonline.com/2011/09/lilly-day-of-service-to-transform-mass-ave/

Architecture/Photography & Left Eye Dominance

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When I started this blog a few months ago I hoped it would be a tool to help improve my photography and perhaps identify some links between my profession (Architecture) and my enjoyment of photography. The other day I was watching my daughter hold the camera and remarked that her hold seemed odd to me, at which point everyone else said; “no, you are the odd one”

Thus I learned yesterday (to my surprise) that I fall in the minority of people who use their left eye with a camera viewfinder. A little googling and I found that about 2/3 use the right eye and 1/3 use left. I also learned that the “right brain” controls the left eye and vice versa. Ergo, it seems my left eye dominance indicates a right brain dominance. I had never noticed I was doing something different with the camera… it just seemed the natural thing to do. I am right handed and right footed which is apparently ‘weird’ for someone left eyed.I have never been a big fan of those who claim to have discovered the universal code for “you are the way you are because” (birth order, birth date, etc.) so I will refrain from attaching a great deal of significance to my left eye dominance, but it is interesting and maybe it touches in a small degree on why I enjoy Architecture and Photography? At the very least they are both very creative and very visual endeavors.

Just as there are left handed role models out there for left handed people, I will be content to be left eyed like Joe McNally.

Pediatric Iron Lung: Indiana Medical History Museum

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A Pediatric Iron Lung Machine: and some story behind the photo.
Rotary and other groups were once allowed to borrow this historical piece but it was getting beat up so the museum started saying no to loan requests. However, they did give permission to photograph if IMHM could have a copy of the photo. I was not allowed to touch the equipment so had to do the best I could with it’s existing position and lighting. I was disappointed with what I was getting until I tried placing a flash underneath. At first that didn’t work either because it was too ‘directional’ depending on where it was ‘aimed’. More in desperation than intent I took a white plastic grocery bag (I had brought a black backdrop cloth in it) scrunched it up and and wrapped it around the flash. I took this photo from a step ladder so I could get a shot down into the machine. An interesting note: the floor is red because this is located in the original “Autopsy Room”. “Back-in-the-day” they had painted the floor blood red so it didn’t look so messy with all the blood around…

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I took this Photo at IMHM for friend involved in Indianapolis Sunrise Rotary Club. A 30×40 mounted blowup was on display at 2nd floor Atheneum ArtSpace beginning for First Friday for one month during an “End Polio Now” exhibit. This photo (and others) were given to IMHM but I can not find anywhere on their website. So it was published and used by Rotary Club but it doesn’t seem to have gone any further than that. Below is some other info  about IMHM-it’s a cool place to visit; kind of creepy, but cool.

The Indiana Medical History Museum is located in the Old Pathology Building on the grounds of the former Central State Hospital on the near westside of Indianapolis. The museum represents the beginning of scientific psychiatry and modern medicine while the building itself is the oldest surviving pathology facility in the nation and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The museum maintains a collection of scientific artifacts from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in a completely authentic setting. Constructed in 1895 and augurated in 1896, the nineteen-room Pathological Department Building, as it was then called, is equipped with three clinical laboratories, a photography lab, teaching amphitheatre, autopsy room, and library.

Photo featured in AIA Architect Digital Magazine

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This photo of Plainfield High School was featured in Architect Magazine. Here’s the photo and a bit of a story:

The hostas were in bloom and it was a hot morning so I was looking for some shade. Unfortunately the hostas were still wet with morning dew and there were several tall weeds towering above the hostas and grasses. I carefully climbed up onto the planter and pulled the weeds which much to my chagrin came up with huge clumps of dirt attached to the roots. Then brought the tripod and camera up, waded into the corner and got fairly wet from the plants. It was a little awkward trying to ‘get real low’ without sitting down in the plants and it created an audience gallery at a big window to the left of the photo (unseen here). Afterward, a teacher thanked me for my weeding efforts and said I could come back anytime… It’s nice to be recognized as being good at something. This was my favorite shot of the day. I was happy to see it picked as the ‘cover photo’ of the articles slideshow.

Below is a snip of the webpage and a link: http://www.architectmagazine.com/education-projects/educational-facility.aspx
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Here’s a snip of the slide and text from the article:
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This project (along with other photos) was also featured in the 2009 Architectural Portfolio of SchoolDesigns.com http://schooldesigns.com/Project-Details.aspx?Project_ID=3678

Even more photos of this incredible Schmidt Associates project at Plainfield High School can be seen here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/schmidtassociates/sets/72157626954548646/

Honor or Offense?

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Another of my photos has been Published! and like most, this one has a story behind it.

So, we’re getting ready to leave for vacation; I grab a bowl of cereal and sit down at the dining room table cluttered with several days stuff’ including mail. An advertisement for Stout’s Shoes catches my eye. Normally (and thankfully) most ads that arrive by mail get pitched immediately but somehow this one hadn’t made it to the trash yet. It proclaimed a 125 year anniversary shoe sale with a mix of historical and new images of the Mass Avenue storefront. That was interesting; I always like to look at old images of familiar storefronts. There was a ‘Deja Vu’ click, something seemed familiar about one of the photos, but no, it couldn’t be…, it must just be a similar photo to one I’d taken and posted to flickr over a year ago… Surely not my photo…

I checked. Yep, it’s my photo, exactly, not cropped or shopped, nothing but straight off of flickr. Then the roller coaster of “That’s so cool, of all the photos out there someone liked mine best!” then, “The scoundrels, they didn’t even ask, or give any credit, how lame!, they used my photo then mailed it to my house!” up and down, up and down.

The chance was SO slim that I would even notice. Nobody (really NOBODY) but me would ever have recognized that the Stout’s ad photo was mine.

So here’s my photo on flickr:
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and here’s the Stout’s Shoe ad:
Stout's Shoes Ad

So, what would you do, be honored or offended? Personally I lean toward being honored. I don’t think Stout’s is involved in a deep conspiracy to steal and profit from my photos.

Yes, I did check with Stout’s. They passed along the contact info for the ad and they in turn apologized for unwittingly using my photo. They had gotten it from another website where it had been lifted by someone else, which I am finding happens a lot…

So I’ll look on the up-side, I enjoyed catching an image of Stout’s in nice early morning light, at least a few other folks out there thought it was good enough to represent Stout’s Shoes 125th Anniversary Sale, and I got published again!

Schmap’d

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Another photo “published” sort-of, kind-of, in a wierd way I can’t say I really understand. Here’s a partial screen capture of the Chicago>Parks & Gardens “Schmap” page featuring my photo of a “Powder Puff Tree” (Calliandra Haematocephala). That’s cool, and they did ask if it could be used. I said yes with credit and they did give credit (see the “dadart” there under the photo). The wierd thing is that when they initially asked it was a rather generic request to use my photo from Garfield Park Conservatory in their upcoming Schmap interactive city guide books. I assumed Indianapolis. This photo is from the GPC here on the southside of Indianapolis (not Chicago GPC). But then, I suppose a tree blossoming in Chicago would look quite similar to one here… Anyway, it seems like a good reminder to not consider everything you ‘discover’ on the internet completely vetted for accuracy…

Schmap partial screen capture of:
http://chicago.schmap.com/parks/garfield_park?pn=63

 

Garfield

Here’s the original photo
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Misty Morning Sunrise

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I’ve always enjoyed “rays” photos like this. They so clearly capture a short moment when conditions are just right and that sense of ‘specialness’ lingers as you enjoy it before the moment fades away. This was right at our campsite at Brown County State Park yesterday morning. I tried to capture this but at first the camera kept compensating for all the dark areas by bumping exposure. I had to intentionally underexpose to not lose the rays.