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Chicago

07.05.08 /
4th of July Redux
Chicago, Food, Personal, Photography | Permalink | Comment?

Well, like I said, I never let acute guilt about the role of the US in world politics keep me from a barbecue. We had our friends John and Lindz over for a really nice barbecue yesterday to celebrate the holiday in style. They brought their dog Chai, whom Sybil and Ruby were really glad to see, and we had a nice time; first hanging out inside and then moving out to the patio to grill and relax. Unlike our last cookout, it wasn’t too windy to talk; however, we almost missed the wind, since there were swarms of gnats instead. A light dusting of DEET-enabled bug spray and a citronella candle later, we were in business. Brats, burgers, corn, cheap beer–the All-American summer meal, amirite?

Afterwards we retired to our building’s sundeck, a really nice facility whose location had been a mystery to Kristy and I until last night. We got a nice late-afternoon / early-evening view of the city as the sun sank. We played a few rounds of Uno, but of the three hands we played, I was the only one not to win. Dick bastards.

As dusk gathered about us, we gathered our possessions and headed out to an “underground” fireworks show in Ukrainian Village, whose organizers/performers we are to varying degrees acquainted with. He’s a really cool guy, and in the image at left, he’s demonstrating why I describe the event as an underground show. Yes, that’s a real 6″ shell; it made a pretty impressive skyburst. There were literally hundreds of these, and it went on for at least 45 minutes. It was quite honestly better than I remember the 4th of July fireworks in my hometown being, and it was put on by a bunch of well-connected amateurs. The show has apparently been going for years now, and the whole neighborhood turned out to watch. The cop cruisers circled, but seemed to be looking for trouble at the fringes of the crowd, ignoring the pyrotechnics in the parking lot. Had we not eaten first, there were plenty of tasty-smelling kebabs making the rounds, and the smell of cooked brats mingled with the sulfuric tang of the display all night. Needless to say, I was there with my camera set up to try to capture the air show.

So, photography. I checked with the guy who had invited us all to make sure that photography was permitted. You know, “underground show” and all. It was enthusiastically encouraged, so I hauled out my tripod and set it up pointing at the sky. It’s amazing how unselfconscious I’m getting about it by now–at long last! Since it was going to be right over us, I swapped out the 50mm prime that I’d used to excellent effect on the 3rd for my 18-55mm zoom, so as to cover the greatest possible area of sky; I could use it wide-open without fear of vignetting, because a) I wanted to stop it down anyways so I could leave the lens open and b) I was taking pictures of a dark sky! Everything was looking great on the screen when I occasionally checked it for proper exposure. Not only were the histograms showing that I was “doing it right,” but the photos were good too. Of course, you might guess that I wouldn’t elaborate on this unless something were actually going wrong…

Fig. 1: Looking good on-camera…
Fig. 2: Oh fuck.

Heartbreak. This is what I forgot, when I switched lenses: the 18-55mm zoom is a piece of absolute shit when it comes to manual focus. First of all, distances are unmarked, making any manual focus dodgy. But that’s ok, right? because I’m shooting with a fairly deep aperture at stuff that’s far away–I can just set focus to infinity, and the depth of field will sweep in anything more than 50 feet away. Sadly, unlike any other lens I’ve used, turning the manual focus all the way to the end is not “infinity”; instead, it’s “nothing.” Perhaps that is why this lens had to be refurbed, perhaps it’s just a bad design, but you can actually place the manual focus adjuster so that literally nothing is in focus. Which is what I cleverly did, so that I could shoot more shots because I wouldn’t have to wait for autofocus on each one. About 2/3 of the way through the evening, I realized my horrible mistake, but by then we were on to the finale, and smoke obscured a lot of the effects, leaving a tantalizing glimpse of what might have been.

Fig. 3: Even looks better at this distance
Fig. 4: Aha, focused correctly

What I should have done: first, I shouldn’t have assumed infinity focus would work. I could have sacrificed a few of the effects, not taking pictures in order to use them for finding focus–this is what I ended up doing later. Alternatively, I could have let autofocus handle the first one, and then switched the camera to manual focus after I’d found the right distance. I could have bought a lens, like the Tokina 11-16mm that I’m lusting after right now, that actually has proper infinity focus. Finally, I could just relax, as Kristy suggests, and realize that although a lot of my pictures aren’t as focused as I’d like them, they still turned out really well. And there’s always next year, right?

Disappointment aside, I did add a few decent tricks to my arsenal. Using manual focus DID allow me to snap freely–with no focus time, the shutter opened immediately when I asked it to. I tried using my remote for a shutter release, so that my hand wouldn’t jitter the camera, but the mechanics of bulb mode with the remote (press to open, press to close) ended up being too difficult to be practical for high-speed use. I left the camera in bulb mode, but I used the shutter release button instead (press to open, release to close). This let me open the shutter right when I knew the shell was going to explode and release as soon as I thought it had made the effect I wanted. I figured out that there was a reason my tripod’s panning release has a variety of degrees of tension, too–by tightening it halfway, I could still pan the camera up, but it offered enough resistance that I could pan to where a firework was and snap a .5s – 1.5s exposure without my hand on the unlocked tripod causing any visible jitter. I worked most of the night that way, panning up to the shell, holding the shutter, releasing.

Between the new things that I picked up and the hard reminder that I got, I’m going to take some amazing pictures next time I’m near fireworks.
06.14.08 /
Chicago Cares!
Chicago, Personal | Permalink | 2 Comments

Today was the 15th annual “Chicago Cares” Serv-a-Thon. I’m proud to say that my company put a group together to volunteer, and that, although I signed up rather late, I was able to participate. We painted four classrooms at Cook Elementary, near 81st and Loomis. Now I’m sitting on our couch at home, with ice on my knee, a beer in my hand, my laptop on my leg, the dogs at my side, and the new episode of Battlestar Galactica on my TV. And yet, the work I did this morning was even more satisfying. If you have a chance, please find time to volunteer for something. It’ll be even better for you than I can possibly describe.
03.20.08 /
Five Years is Too Many
Chicago, Personal, Photography, Politics | Permalink | 2 Comments

Five years ago now, George W. Bush launched an elective, “preemptive” war of aggression against the sovereign nation of Iraq. It’s not necessary to paint Saddam Hussein as some sort of false saint to note that this is a war crime, and one need not be a leftist to point out that Sen. McCain and Sen. Clinton are both tarred with their support of that decision. In a similar period of time, the United States and its allies fought the Axis powers to a complete standstill; but thanks to the ineptitude of this administration, we are still mired in Iraq and figure to be for some time. Five years is too many, and thousands of Chicagoans took to the streets (as they have every anniversary of this invasion) to protest. This year, I was one of them.

The protest convened in Federal Plaza, which filled up quickly as the start time of 6:00pm passed. There were people of all ages, races, and ethnic backgrounds. Many young parents came with their children, a wonderful experience for both, I imagine. We assembled peaceably and listened to speakers while waiting for the rest of our brethren to arrive. During this time, some of the more outspoken protesters donned the familiar orange jumpsuit of the hapless souls that disappear into the CIA’s own Gulag Archipelago of classified detention facilities. Kristy noted what a dramatic suggestion the Federal building behind them provided.

After some minutes had passed and the crowd fully assembled, we began to march. Our route took us through the heart of the loop, up Clark to Wacker, then through the Magnificent Mile up Michigan to Oak St. The temperature being relatively comfortable, the majority of the crowd seemed to have little difficulty with the mile-and-a-half route. Chicago’s finest saw to it that we did not interrupt the important consumption-related program activities of tourists and yuppies on Mag Mile, lining our route ominously, sometimes in riot gear.

At right, what the Chicago Police Department thinks of your right to freedom of assembly. At far right, what I think of their presence–it can be hard to separate my resentment at the powers that put them there from the officers individually.

Our permitted route ended at Washington Square Park, near Oak St. and Dearborn. Although the crowd became rowdy, huge numbers of police showed up and were able to successfully disperse us, though not without some histrionics. Although I can admit to a side of me that was spoiling for a fight, ultimately I agree with some of the more veteran protesters that thought this behavior was unfortunate.

One thing that was unfortunate: Kristy was laid low by a cold and could not join me. Still I’m very glad she encouraged me to go. Not only was it a remarkable experience, but it also felt really good to step away from the sideline a little bit. I’ve been blogging about politics for nearly as long as our troops have been killing Iraqis, but, aside from voting and internet demagoguery, this is my first foray into activism. What an important cause to be able to support.

More images in my Flickr account or at my gallery.
02.12.08 /
Cold Town, Winter in the City
Chicago, Personal | Permalink | 2 Comments

I complain a lot about the winters here, but at least to go with all the chill there is a fair amount of snow. I remember, while growing up west of Cleveland, watching the weather report, bitterly jealous about the many inches of lake effect snow being dropped on the east-side ‘burbs and the school closings that accompanied them. Although I can only look backwards now, and can only try to recall what those child’s eyes saw, it seems like there were only a few times each winter when any snow to speak of fell. Chicago has more than enough snowfall to make up for it, and grumpy as I can be about it, it turns the mid-day loop into a fairyland. Today I went home over lunch to take care of the dogs; although I didn’t bring a camera, here is a shot I took last week that approximates the scene pretty well:

Today we had fat flakes swirling around, sometimes even up the faces of buildings. As I rode the train past the Washington/Wells brown line stop, I saw a guy loading a QBert arcade machine into a building in the middle of a snow devil. I never saw anything like that in Toledo.