Illinois

Some scenes from Illinois, the big "I"....

I saw the campus in the early morning, and generally with a bit of rain. That kept down the soybean aphid swarms that I heard about, and gave everything a nice sheen.
There were a few controversies evident, including an on-going student discussion about changing the school mascot (treated in this great sign)...
The buildings had names from the Lincoln administration, in part because of Lincoln's Illinois connection, but because his administration put together the state university system. This is the old insignia over Lincoln Hall, currently under renovation.
The most beautiful feature of the campus is the presence of midwestern vegetation on the campus, like this wild prairie grass.
The student body, especially undergraduate, had a strong midwestern feel, but there was a big international student presence too, which partly accounted for this great umbrella, the best I saw.
I loved the classic big state school quad, and the feeling of natural space flanked by big institutional structures.
The big excitement was the resignation of the president (which seemed to elate most people), in part from the scandal over secret heritage admissions.
Another local touch: the tornado warning sign...

There were several corn plots in the middle of campus, including this one next to an old observatory.
I took this picture for the sign, and only afterward noticed the bug perched on the sign.
This was an intriguing building--the Art History building, also called the Old Farm House, situated in the middle of campus and currently empty for renovation.



Walking a little further, I came across a cemetary (also in the middle of campus), which had a Jewish plot, then a veterans area, then a German immigrant area, and so on. This is a picture looking into the window of the mausoleum; the Civil War monument is reflected in the window.
The names seemed really evocative.

This was the most decked out tombstone: an American flag, the Illinois mascot banner, and a tomato plant!

I was able to go into this great structure too: the cattle pavilion for showing livestock in the Ag School.This was some of the more modern, kind-of-ugly, kind-of-beautiful-in-a-stark-kind-of-way architecture.

The last morning I was there, several student groups were having a pancake benefit outside.

Portraits

Los Gatos

Um, Zoe? What's up, dude?

New Pics from a Grateful Happy Boy

LOVING this camera lens, and the new view of depth of field,
interior shots,
depth of field,
and geez, whatever makes this beautiful. You're the greatest!!

Walking around town

Artificial Const(rain)t

So I was going to walk and take some pictures, and a huge rainstorm came up, and my first reaction was "damn" because my plans were messed up. I thought about catching pictures of the light before the rain and after, but then thought I should let the rain be my constraint, and see if I could take a picture in the "worst" conditions.

The first is taken pulled over on a street, with pouring rain, and the car window down. The constraint here made me take a picture I'd never otherwise take, of something that I find ugly on many levels; even the framing (where I stopped, briefly, and the open window, and the distance I could get leaning across the seat but staying out of the rain) is constrained. I guess what I "like" about this picture (and maybe about some of the NYC pictures I took last week) is that it captures the ugliness well (the plastic, the incompleteness of the construction, the aggressive sign, the ubiquitous brandnames, the rain).

The second I really like: I stopped the car three blocks from home and took a bunch of pictures as the windshield became obscured. I like that this picture captures the blurring of vision that we constantly try to see around or through, as our eyes compensate and refine or complete what we need to see (the contours of the road). Here everything we normally focus upon is reduced to colors and shapes, while that which should be transparent (the glass, the atmosphere) come together with texture.
This third I attempted after several unsuccessful attempts to take a picture on our porch: I was trying to capture rain in several directions, and finally tried upward and to the right--a view I never catch, but one that allowed me to show the rain. Here I like the contrast of artificial shapes and lines (house and wiring) with the nature (leaves and trees), the color contrast, the clarity of the foregrounded leaves (and the shadows as they overlay, and then the delicacy of the weedy vine) compared with the fuzziness of the tree in the background, even the lone drop on the electric line.

And this last picture is from the top pane of the left window over the sink, capturing the run-off from the eave: I had to hold the camera up there and take a few pictures.

All of the above were cropped and modified (color contrast, mostly) with Photoshop, about which I still have some ambivalence, as it seems like these are less my pictures. But this fancy blogging software and font, I guess, enhances my writing, though this is not what my hand would have produced. Not sure what I think about that....

Anyway...some first constraint pictures...