Today is the first anniversary of tWp’s inaugural post. I had the privilege of making that post last year on Monday, March 9. Our philosophy has always been: if you build the site, populate it with great images, they will come. We have expanded and will continue to expand this site with information on how to make images, process images, etc so long as there are people interested in what we do and interesting in learning from what we do.
Though the last 12 months have required much work and dedication, you have made this fun and possible.
We couldn’t have done it without you: the continuation of tWp since that March Monday is due to you and your visits. Though we started at a trickle, this site has received nearly a quarter million page views since that first post; and these data don’t include the hundreds of RSS subscribers who tune in every day. Combined with my flickr page, over a half million clicks have led viewers to tWp imagery (add Annie’s, Mike’s and Val’s flickr pages and the number is larger still)! That is a truly flattering and humbling statistic – thank you a million times!! As if that weren’t enough, tWp continues to grow each day – registering more than 10,000 visitors per month and growing at a rate of nearly 10% per month. Who knows what the future holds??
Okay, now you should have seen this one coming. We started things with a juicy (overdone?) HDR of Fullerton Avenue, glaciated in the depths of January with the Windy City twinkling in the background. I’ve returned there since, posting other images from Fullerton, North Avenue and points along the north side lakefront. I thought it time, however, to pay homage to that first post with something new, something representative of what I’ve learned about being behind the camera and on the computer since.
This image was captured in late February on the old sea wall at Fullerton Ave. The lake was so still when it froze that no ice had been thrown onto the wall or breakers. I could get myself and my camera all the way down to water (ice) level and perch ever so carefully on the great blocks of cement that comprise the old sea wall. Cloudy skies parted just long enough to let those beams of amber slip through and play along the great, icy scales of Lake Michigan. I love these old bits of seawall with their rotting timbers and metal bars – they give substrate for the ice to cover and, when the water is liquid, uneven surface onto which the waves can make wonderous, uneven landfall.
And now a walk down memory lane:
Photo by Justin Kern – Feel free to use images with links and credit – no commercial use without permission.
Tags: Chicago, hancock building, hdr, ice, justin kern, lake michigan, morning, Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8, Nikon D700, photomatix, sears tower, Sunrise
I’m looking forward to spring.
The simplicity and beauty of this image by Mike blow me away – the light at the top of the frame makes the depth endless. Sky, water, ice and concrete – awesome. -Justin
Photo by Mike Boehmer – Feel free to use images with links and credit – no commercial use without permission.
The Windy Pixel’s first birthday is fast approaching. I will be out of town for it, but I’ve scheduled some good content to mark this auspicious occasion appropriately. A year past and I find myself in the same haunts, shooting very nearly the same things. Rather than being in a rut, however, I feel more apt than ever to document these places and this city as never before. The easiest way to be original, to do something different is to do something new. Far better to do something familiar in a new way.
Open your eyes and see things as for the first time.
More ceiling porn from the Trib Tower’s lobby – the security guard here is a great guy (an older fellow from Indiana) – I recommend striking up a conversation with him!
Photo by Justin Kern – Feel free to use images with links and credit – no commercial use without permission.
More from those shadowy gates of the Chicago Theological Seminary. Found myself inside these doors the other day, doing a bit of shooting in Hogwart’s Castle – more on that in a future post.
I sent out a tweet last night about getting together with some other Chicago photographers this morning for a photowalk. Matt Wolin (www.shutterrunner.com) showed up and we walked around the near north side a bit – follow me on twitter @thewindypixel to find out about future last-minute things that we “plan.” I usually only have the time to put out the hottest fire, so please forgive me if the chance to get together to do some photowalking passed you by. I promise we’ll do another before I head out Californy-way.
Photo by Justin Kern – Feel free to use images with links and credit – no commercial use without permission.
Tags: Chicago, Chicago theological seminary, grant park, hdr, justin kern, night, Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8, Nikon D700, photomatix, University of Chicago, winter
I’m excited about today’s post – something of a reveal here on tWp. I posted a long time ago about how I was doing a ton of photography on the campus of the University of Chicago as my tenure there slowly runs out and that the photographs I was gathering would be part of one or two big projects.
The first of these projects is an effort to document the unusual and dramatic places on campus. A number of readers have remarked that some of the photographs from the U of C published here on tWp make the City Grey look like Hogwart’s. The place was built to emulate Oxford, and Hogwarts being modeled partly after Oxford, this collection of images is going to be called something like “The University of Chicogwarts.” When I’ve posted enough of these images to constitute a gallery, be assured they will appear here on tWp, all on one page for your delectation. In the meantime, slake your thirst for images of Gothic architecture and the UChicago campus via my flickr gallery called “The City Grey that Ne’er Shall Die.”
I happened to pop into Rockefeller Chapel just as James, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine, who also can play the hell out of the carillon, was giving a tour of the Rockefeller Chapel tower. I couldn’t pass up on the opportunity and joined James and his music student, Oliver. It was so cool – to get to the very tip top of the tower, you have to climb about three cases of spiral steps that just keep going up and up and up. Should you be interested yourself, tours are available to the public – information can be found here.
At the top the two musicians practiced and played some great music – the carillon, as one might expect, is a big instrument, requiring coordination of many foot and hand levers. It’s like a piano on steroids. I took my leave after a bit and let them do their thing, giving myself ample time to take photographs on my way down the tower. The mood was perfect – loud carillon music filled the empty spaces of the tower as I snaked my way down the steps. Every now and then a cavernous space would open up, a mysterious doorway into some corner of Rockefeller Chapel. Cold, stale air rushed from these rooms along with the ebb and flow of the carillon. All alone it was a bit spooky and a lot of fun – this gaping maw of a brick doorway, placed in some darkened and mysterious corner of the tower looked for all the world like the chamber of secrets.
Photo by Justin Kern – Feel free to use images with links and credit – no commercial use without permission.
by Justin
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