fourpointedstar

One of my favorite things to do in the winter in Chicago is to visit one of the conservatories to see the plants and blossoms. The splash of color does wonders to invigorate my spirit.
But then I tend to create monochrome images out of my trips because I love the textures.

The shadows from the melting ice or snow rolling down the glass were the perfect addition to all of the angles in this photo.

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Santiago Calatrava’s buildings never fail to impress. They’re almost always futuristic, but often can be mistaken for an animal in some kind of animated reality. Even his art installation in Chicago has a fluid and natural motion to it.

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If you crane your neck and look UP under Calatrava’s wonderful design, the view is magnificent!

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Perhaps someday I will grow tired of capturing the Quadracci Pavilion at the Milwaukee Art Museum, but for now, I love visiting that building. The whites and blues and sunlight are the perfect painters of abstract patterns; I can’t wait to go back!

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I tend to edit my photos based on how they “feel” and one of those feelings is balance.” The photo should appear balanced, but the sad part is that I don’t know that I could quantify what makes a photo balanced … but I know it when I capture the photograph or in most cases, when I edit the photograph.

Sarah and I took a day trip up to visit family in Milwaukee and on the way took a walk through Milwaukee. I may enjoy reflections in windows more than any other kinds of architecture photography.

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I know, I know … all that I did was turn the photo sideways, but when an architect lays out clean lines, and there’s a wonderfully warped reflection, well … that’s all that I needed to do, right?

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cz

As Sarah and I walked past 833 Michigan Street, we both noticed the modern abstract fixture hanging in the lobby. The installation definitely feels at home inside of the the large glass lobby, but the reflection of the US Bank building in the same windows blocked the view of the fixture. Fortunately, the contrast between the two makes a compelling photograph.

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cz

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If you start looking, the reflections of any town will provide dynamic views and photographs. I love the unfinished nature of this photo; how the angle of the foreground building gives the appearance of an unfinished canvas that drops into the negative space provided by the soft blue sky. You will find many reflections throughout my architecture photography, and I know that there will be more to come as well!

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I was unable to track down exactly where this location might have been. It may be the valley in between Kingman, Arizona and the Arizona & California state line, but when viewing the desert from 25,000 feet, it’s a bit hard to determine specific landmarks.

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I think most people think of the Golden Gate Bridge or Hollywood or the beach when someone mentions California, but Bakersfield and the surrounding area in the south is so very different. As we flew over the mountains, my coworker mentioned how much he enjoys the mountains and the vistas they afford – something that California can definitely offer in spades.

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While flying over the dry and monochrome desert areas of northern New Mexico, we passed this one snowy cap. From my vantage point it looked quite out of place, but the Sierra Grande summit is all that remains of an extinct volcano. From a general Google search, it doesn’t look that steep or tall, but it is about 2,000 feet taller than any peak in the Appalachian range.

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I love photographing abstracts, and some of the coolest abstracts are in landscapes. On my recent work trip to Bakersfield, CA I took a few photos of the various landscape features that caught my attention.
This is St. Joseph, Missouri; and while that airport is in Missouri, everything else to the right (west) of the river is Nebraska. Rivers wind and change course over time, but state lines don’t.

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A month ago at photo club, we had a group of photographers edit various photos so that the club could see various styles and choices. I submitted a few “bad” photos to the group of editors and one of my friends took my bad photo of this 918 Spyder and created an image similar to my edit above. I was amazed at how he’d taken a photo that I’d written off and created something gorgeous!
…to be clear, the image above is my recreation of his edit…

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Why, yes, I did enjoy taking photos of the Chihuly installation at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Some day, Sarah and I will make it out to Seattle to his museum…

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