Weekly Header Challenge -- Looking Up

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Fishing Guy 

Kathy 

Imac 

Lew

I'm joining the group above for this weekly challenge.

Visit the other participants' blogs to see their entries!

Theme ~ Looking Up

Chosen by Tom.

For this week's theme, I traveled back in time to our silver anniversary trip to Paris.  Although pictures don't do justice to the view, it's pretty amazing standing at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower and looking up.  Here is the uncropped image I used for this week's header:

Closer to home is another tower--the Moser Tower which houses the Millenium Carillon in Naperville.  At the bottom, looking up, you can see a series of bells, from the largest bell, "Big Joe," to the smaller and smaller ones, until you have to climb the stairs to see the smallest bells of the carillon.

At the very top of the Moser Tower, you can look up and see the sky.  I took a picture, then turned 90 degrees and took a second picture for a different look.  I do like the second one better, though both are visually interesting.

In Chicago, you can find many old churches, one of which is Notre Dame de Chicago, which boasts this beautiful dome in its sanctuary.

Lots of signs can be seen if you look up; here is one of my favorite ice cream shops, in the Adirondack Mountains of New York.

Finally, here's one old image I took at a springtime church picnic.  Daddy sure had to look up so he could catch his little son!

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Weekly Header Challenge -- Historic District

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Fishing Guy 

Kathy 

Imac 

Lew

I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.

Click on the other participants' blogs to see

what they've come up with!

Theme ~ Historic District

Chosen by Lew.

My home town doesn't have an historic district, so I turned to our neighboring town for inspiration.  I grew up in this town, and have had the opportunity (twice now) to tour the Moser Tower which houses the Millenium Carillon.  There is an observation area in the tower, and that is where I stood to take this panoramic photo of downtown Naperville, which dates to the 1800s.  Here is my header image, which I had already cropped:

Downtown Naperville cityscape, featuring the spire of Sts. Peter & Paul Church.

So, what might one see in an historic district?  My photos will show you...

One might see old brick buildings...

Building in downtown Chicago.

Or just plain old buildings...

Downtown Harrisville, NY (yes, the entire downtown).

Or even famous buildings...

Notre Dame, Paris, France.

One might see beautiful lights...

Old lighting in downtown Chicago.

Beautiful lamp on Ile St. Louis, Paris, France.

One might also see columns...

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

North Central College, Naperville, IL.

University of Illinois.

And, one might see ivy-covered walls...

Old building in downtown Naperville.

Finally, the interiors of buildings in an historic district will also delight the eye.  Here are a few pictures I took at a church called Notre Dame de Chicago.  My son Danny sang here with his university's choir last year, and he will be a featured singer in the university's chamber choir this coming Friday in this same location!

I love old buildings; they're full of history and I always wonder who the people were that walked the same floors as I, and what their stories are.


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Weekly Header Challenge -- Reflections

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Craver VII 

Fishing Guy 

Katney 

Imac 

Lew

I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.

Click on the other participants' blogs to see

what they've come up with!

Theme ~ Reflections

Chosen by Lew.

After a scare with my computer--it sometimes refuses to recognize my external hard drive, so I thought I may have lost all my digital images--and about an hour of my time, I gained a few gray hairs and a few images to share with you here today.  I also became a world traveler for these images, from home in Chicago, to New York, and all the way to Paris.

Here is the full image from my header:

Cloud Gate, a.k.a. The Bean, Chicago, Illinois.

I left this image as I had edited it several years ago (2011).  The Bean is a great "reflector," isn't it?  Here's another very subtle image of The Bean:

Above, if you look closely, you can see the edge of The Bean.  I framed it with the tree in the foreground, and the concrete wall, so it looks like you're looking at the city skyline.  But, if you look at the buildings closely, they're a bit curved!  You're really looking at the city's reflection in The Bean.  Clever, huh?  *pats self on back*

One more stylized image from The Bean's reflection:

On to New York--not the city, but my favorite place on Earth:  Lake Bonaparte.  I photographed a 100-year celebration of one family's Lake home, when, toward the end of the event, I spotted the reflection of the Lake behind me in this gazing ball.  It was getting on toward sunset, too, hence the pinks and purples in the reflection.

Now I'm jetting across the Atlantic to Mac's side of the world, and Paris!  One of my classic favorites from our silver anniversary trip is this picture of Notre Dame across the Seine, with the lights reflecting a beautiful gold across the water.

On to the Eiffel Tower, with Fernando's and my reflections in the window as we waited for the elevator to take us to the top of the tower.

At the Grand Palais, I spotted this French flag and its reflection in the window.  I focused on the reflection, creating a bit of out-of-focus fuzz on the actual flag.

This is one of my favorite reflection photos.  We spotted this painter in a storefront studio, and my aim was to capture her at her art.  I ended up with an image that did that, but that also captured the reflections of buildings across the street, plus a whole lot to look at and let your eye wander over.

Thanks for traveling the world and reflecting on my images with me!


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Weekly Header Challenge -- Vertical

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Craver VII 

Fishing Guy 

Katney 

Imac 

Lew

I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.

Click on the other participants' blogs to see

what they've come up with!

Theme ~ Vertical

Chosen by me.

I had this specific image in mind when I thought about a theme for this week.  I'm always intrigued by perspective, and I was tossing around the idea of how different an image can look and feel depending on whether it's taken vertically or horizontally.  First, here is my header image, full frame:

I'm still slightly a-wonder when I see this image, and I'm saving my pennies to have it developed on a large canvas to be placed in our dining room.  Note the difference in the feeling evoked with the vertical perspective (below), which is how I usually want to orient really tall tree pictures:

These pine trees at the Morton Arboretum are massively tall, but I really think that the horizontal perspective gives a completely different feel--I get the sense of tallness, to be sure, but the sheer vastness of the pine forest overwhelms me, and I am taken back to that moment I walked among the pines, the whisper-feel of the ground as I walked by, just the silence and majesty.  I'm waxing eloquent here, but you see the difference.

One more horizontal vs. vertical, so you can see the difference.  I also like the horizontal perspective of this next image over its vertical companion.

Now on to purely horizontal images of vertical things!  Usually, I shoot fireworks vertically, because they go way up, up, and up, but I shot some of these horizontally, and was able to capture the fireworks bursting in the sky, shooting up from the water, plus the reflection.  I really like this shot.

ISO 100, 17-40mm at 17mm, f/8, 4-second exposure. 

(In case you wondered.)

Buildings are another thing typically shot vertically, but I love this next one, which really gives an impression of height.

Flowers, too, with their stems, tend to be shot long-wise.  Here are a few horizontal frames that show a vertical sense.

Well, that's what I had in mind for this week's theme.  I love trying a challenge, and I think this challenged me to see things in a way I don't usually see them.  Thanks for visiting me today, and I hope I've inspired you, too!!


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Weekly Header Challenge - The Sun

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Craver VII 

Fishing Guy 

Katney 

Imac 

Lew

I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.

Click on the other participants' blogs to see

what they've come up with!

Theme ~ The Sun

Chosen by me.

First, my thoughts behind the theme choice...  Since you really can't take pictures of the sun--with our DSLR cameras, anyway--I really wanted to share images that show the sun's effects.  Meaning--I can tell that the sun was shining, or I can see the sun's rays, or its effects on my subject.  And I found it a tad difficult to find good images.  Here are the ones I chose; first, my full header image:

This is my baby squash plant (it no longer looks this way; they grow quickly!).  The sun was behind it, illuminating the leaf's veins.  You can even see the shadow of the stem at about the 5:00 mark, if it were a clock.  I love how it looks like it's glowing.  Later this autumn, we will be glowing as we eat the yummy squash we'll get!

Another view of the sun on my squash.

These next two images are some of my favorites, as far as the sun is concerned.  They were taken at WIU at Jacob's college graduation; don't you love the lilacs' color and scent?  I do.  In this first image you can see some of the glow of the sun.  I decided I wanted a sun star, so I moved around until I could make that happen.

To get the defined rays--and I shoot on manual--set the f-stop number as high as you can on your camera.  This results in a very small aperture.  (Small aperture = high f-stop number.)  The small aperture, combined with a slower shutter speed, allows more light into the camera lens, and results in a sun star!  My shutter speed is 1/160 second in the below--slow enough to get a proper exposure on the flowers (any faster and they'd be in shadow).  And that's the technical how-to for sunstars!

I love the below, since it shows the sun's light more subtly on the flowers.  You can see the illumination, and how the sun rolls off the yellow petals  and into shadow.

Here's a bright, sunny day atop the tower that houses the Millenium Carillon in Naperville.  I caught a bird flying by, too!

The sun was not our friend for this late afternoon wedding.  It shone directly into our faces for the whole ceremony, and I'm sure the photographers were challenged to take good pictures of the bride and groom.  (It was a beautiful wedding, though!)

At said wedding, I tried to take a selfie as we waited to enter the reception hall.  We're too close to the lens to be in good focus, and the sun was shining in.  But it's cute nonetheless.  :)

Two more sun stars to brighten your day.  This first one is a building at the University of Illinois (Champaign/Urbana).

And my final sun star is within the tower that houses the Millenium Carillon.  Perfect time of day, sun shining through the building--rather cool!

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Weekly Header Challenge - Bridges

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Craver VII 

Fishing Guy 

Katney 

Imac 

Lew
Tom W 

I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.

Click on the other participants' blogs to see

what they've come up with!

Theme ~ Bridges

Chosen by Lew.

Every week, when I delve into my archives to look for images to portray the current theme, I'm amazed that I actually have images that work.  This week was no exception--I've taken lots of pictures of bridges.

I thought I'd use this fun image of a bridge from a unique perspective--through the front window of our moving car.  (No, I was not driving.)  You get to see exactly what I saw as we followed our friends (the H. family, in that car ahead of us) toward our destination:  a beach cottage at Vero Beach, Florida.  The H's had invited us to spend the week with them in their time share in May 2011, so we did!  They told us about this bridge just five minutes from the resort, but experiencing it was truly amazing.  It really did seem as if we'd drive off the edge of the road!  You also get to see all those lovely smears of love bugs, which infest the Florida coast for about a week each spring!

Keeping to the perspective of from the car, below is another shot of us crossing the Louisville Bridge over the Ohio River, crossing from Kentucky into Indiana, on our way home from visiting friends in Georgia last year.

One final shot of a from the car image.  This was during the rains and flooding of April 20, 2013, and we were on our way to a friend's house to help them empty their basement and save as much as possible from the encroaching waters.  (Their back yard was completely flooded but the rising tide stopped just short of their basement windows!)  This below is a footbridge at a golf course, and a raging torrent of what normally is a little brook babbling way below.

Speaking of floods, here is another closed bridge from the same storm system.  This one is just a few blocks from home!  That car almost dead center got stuck and was abandoned, and there is a tree limb wedged on the side of the car.  This bridge was closed for several days until the water subsided.

On to a much prettier bridge!  I thought I'd toss in just one image of a Paris bridge; if you want to see lots, I have an entire blog post dedicated to the bridges along the Seine River in Paris.

Pont au Double, Paris, France.

Back to some bridges closer to home.  Knoch Knolls Park in Naperville has some beautiful walking and biking paths, and I frequently go there to capture images of the river, bridges, and a sunset or two.  Here is the one main walking and biking bridge from this past winter.

Here's a view of the bridge from the winter before.

This below is my favorite shot of this bridge, taken this past January.

Same bridge, autumn:

The other bridge at Knoch Knolls Park is strictly a footbrige; here's the entrance up:

It's the prettiest bridge in autumn!

Below is the bridge from the other side, on a winter afternoon:

One little footbridge at a forest preserve close to home looks like this in the winter:

And this in autumn:

One final little footbridge, at Seager Park in Naperville in the spring.

I started out with the biggest bridge, and ended with the littlest!  I can't wait to see all the bridges my fellow headbangers have posted!


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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