I'm back home now, after a bit of a whirlwind trip around the country. My last few days in Chicago were lovely, just like my first couple.
David and Carrie are excellent hosts and always keep me well-entertained and well-fed. I didn't take a single photo at any of the restaurants we went to. I'm a very serious eater and it's hard for me to wait and even harder for me to remember to photo before I dive in. Instead, I have for you the
Shedd Aquarium:
I must also add that it is really extraordinarily difficult to make good photographs at an aquarium. First, it's always quite dim. Second, the glass and the water do the most horrible things to autofocus and angles. In the photo below, this incredibly creepy giant spider crab looks like it's on television or something. No, it's just the refraction and things making it look strange. Very difficult to pull off good photography in an aquarium.
The next day, my sorta birthday, we made it to the
Art Institute. We went on a "highlights" tour with one of the volunteer docents who spent
fifteen minutes on each painting. Suffice to say, it was more of a "highlight" tour. In any case, it's a huge museum with a ton of great stuff and an amazing number of very famous originals:
Seriously, David and Carrie are the worst subjects. "Go stand in front of those Chagall windows," I said. "Okay, look at each other." They give me maybe .5 seconds to get my shot and then start walking back to me. Thanks guys!!
But seriously, thank you so much David and Carrie for always making my trips to Chicago so fantastic. I hope very much that you get to go where you want for residency (Baltimore! Baltimore! Baltimore!). And thank you David for my expensive and luxurious birthday dinner. Yes folks, I'm now 27, the "hot age" and I look forward to everything this year of my life has to offer!
This shot is "freelensed" - I took the lens off the camera body and tilted it to achieve a different plane of focus (not parallel to the camera body). I had varying degrees of success with the technique - here's a better one.
And here's David. Like I said, it's been snowing, and snowfall creates the most beautiful light for portraits. Like the one on the left. His expression is crap (David is notoriously difficult to photograph), but I love the light.
As someone that's never been to Chicago in the winter before, I was struck with the surreal scene of 20 or so pigeons huddled under the heat lamp on the El platform. Everybody mostly let them be and they let me get really, really close (this is like a 50mm) without seeming to care at all. Fascinating.
Finally, at least 50% of any trip with David consists of eating, talking or thinking about food. Here he is blow-torching our lamb dinner from Saturday night. Yes, it was totally delicious.
More adventures to come, I hope.
I was going to put interesting facts about alligators in this spot, but I've just realized that I learned absolutely nothing at Gatorland. Not sure if that is entirely my fault, but it is what it is. More pictures, then!
There really were just tons and tons of gators all over the place - really close, too - but they had some other animals you could scope out. The birds were remarkably plentiful.
(For feeding the alligators, I realized long after I took this photo.)
Seriously, how cute are these owls!
Finally, plants. I took a little walk through their "real swamp" - very proud that it isn't cultivated, they are. It was swampy. The second photo is taro, of bubble tea fame.
And that's what I did with my afternoon yesterday. In Chicago at David's house now. Hopefully I will bring you images from the windy city next!