Mike's Right Brain

The Orange Chair

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:23:59 -0600

]]> Capture Date/Time:September 12, 2009 11:39
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We found the Midwest-famous Orange Chair! Apparently it is well-known in our photoblog circles as a seat for photoshoots. Someone apparently moved it, and I was disappointed at how torn up it was. I don't think anyone will be doing any posing on it anymore.

Church

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 02:52:26 -0600

]]> Capture Date/Time:September 12, 2009 11:30
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So for the first time in a year I went with a couple of photoblogging buddies on an urbanEx foray this weekend. We went to some oft-photographed sites and abandoned buildings in Michigan City and Gary, Indiana, and it was a blast. Good to get my shoes dirty again. This is an upstairs room at a church in Gary, one of the most photographed sites around.

798 Beijing

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:56:45 -0600

]]> Capture Date/Time:July 24, 2009 13:44
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I don't like this one-post-a-month thing! Sorry about that. Too busy at work lately.

This is a multi-exposure shot from my July Beijing trip, where I made a short visit to the "798" Art Cooperative. What an amazing place.... an old factory complex that is acres in size and full of old buildings, reconstituted into an oversized, multi-unit art gallery. Just an amazing place! More posts in the coming days. I'm anxious to change up.

Panjiayuan

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 23:38:56 -0600

]]> Capture Date/Time:July 23, 2009 12:35
Aperture/Shutter Speed: f/5.6 | 1/200 sec
Focal Length: 40 mm
ISO: 200
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I spent most of last week in Beijing on business, and had a free day to explore. I had pretty much seen most of the major sites, so I wandered around on my own. I always wanted to see Beijing's bustling weekend antiques market at Panjiayuan and to practice my everyday bargaining skills, not to mention my very rudimentary (yet hopefully improving) Chinese. The only problem was that it wasn't the weekend. So I ventured out to Panjiayuan anyway, and there were a few vendors around that were glad to sell me their wares. Most of the rest of the area, which was several acres of shaded informal stalls and small contained furniture shops in traditional stalls, was vacant. I wandered around the back alleys and found this little guy playing with his water bottle. He wasn't happy that I was snapping a photo of his little experiment...

Old Guangzho

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:30:51 -0600

]]> Capture Date/Time:July 26, 2009 13:22
Aperture/Shutter Speed: f/5.6 | 1/800 sec
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So I have been in China again for the past few days. It has been a wonderful trip, but very busy. I haven't found a lot to photograph this time around, and it is not for a lack of trying. It is so hot here that I can't stand to be outside for very long, and things are so hazy that it is hard to get a clear shot of anything. Add to that the fact that my luggage (and my laptop charger and cardreaders) was lost for two days, that makes for no posting from here!

But anyway, a friend of mine who lives here gave me a walking tour of Guangzho on my first day here this week. This is the "walking street" shopping area in the oldest part of town.

Fireworks in Chicago

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 01:49:46 -0600

]]> Capture Date/Time:July 3, 2009 21:02
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Focal Length: 14 mm
ISO: 200
Flash: Studio Strobes

Yes, as you can tell, I have been too busy to post... Sorry!

For the first time in nearly 16 years, we decided to go down to Grant Park to watch the Chicago fireworks show tonight. Thanks to the parking in the building where I work (which is only a few blocks from Grant Park) and an intimate knowledge of how to navigate Lower Wacker Drive, the outing was quite painless. We got there only a little more than an hour early. The kids had a great time, and we're glad we did it! The crowds really weren't that bad at all...

GrowingBoy

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:41:42 -0600

]]> Capture Date/Time:June 8, 2009 20:20
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Flash: Studio Strobes

Grabbed a shot of my other son the other night just before he went to bed since I had the lights set up anyway. He has a great smile... but I think that braces are in his future too. I think I'm going to try and grab a portrait like this of each kid more regularly to sort of get ongoing mugshots of them as they grow. I wish I had room in this house to have the lights set up all the time without having to take them down!

What Money Can Buy

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:25:13 -0600

]]> Capture Date/Time:June 8, 2009 8:20/20:13
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Here's my boy in before/after shots after the installation of some very expensive hardware. It doesn't look like very much, does it? I see a bright future with wonderful smiles and a nice jawline. I also can't help but also see two new Nikon D3X's and a couple of Hassleblads installed in there as well... ouch in more ways than one!

Oh, and I've been working with a new lighting setup here. It's been a lot of fun.

The Highest Heights (Sort Of)

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 21:53:58 -0600

]]> Capture Date/Time:June 5, 2009; 1:44
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It was a very windy day on the beach today, as the crunchy sand collected in the creases of my D2X "beach camera" will tell you. (There's nothing quite like the sound of sand in the 'ol F-mount as you twist on a lens...) We took advantage of the wind and tried flying my son's kite today. He did a pretty good job of it, although we had a lot of trouble keeping it high enough above the dunes. Perhaps things will go better if we spend more than $5 on the kite?

The Sunset Grammy Painted For Us

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 07:43:17 -0600

]]> Capture Date/Time:June 3, 2009; 7:20
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One of the reasons why we've been coming down to Topsail for the past 20 years is because it was a very special place to my wife's mom. "Grammy's" family gathers here each year and we are able to connect and remember her. At least once each visit, we walk over to the partially built dock on the property where her retirement house was going to be built and have a little ceremony where we share memories and drop flowers into the retreating tide on the waterway. It is here where we scattered her ashes over ten years ago. We did that last night, just as a beautiful sunset was painted over the water.

Back on the Beach

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:42:49 -0600

]]> Capture Date/Time:June 2, 2009; 2:20
Aperture/Shutter Speed: f/4 | 1/1500 sec
Focal Length: 100 mm
ISO: 200
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It's that time of year again, and we're back here in North Carolina. I can't believe it's already been a year... it feels like just yesterday that we were here last time. Just my luck: I have been pretty ill with a fever since arriving, but I have managed to sit out on the beach for a couple of hours a day. I'm finally starting to feel a bit better, and I'm looking forward to more vacationing (and more postings) in the coming days.

Woogms

Wed, 27 May 2009 09:18:36 -0600

]]> Capture Date/Time:May 25, 2009; 11:16
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ISO: 320
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Yes it's been forever. I'm still here!

This was taken at the annual WOOGMS parade, which is a tiny little Memorial Day parade that we sometimes march in down little Wellington Street in East Lakeview. It goes for only a couple of blocks, but it's a lot of fun for the kids. It seems like yesterday we were pushing our daughter in the parade in a stroller...

Planet HK

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:11:34 -0600

]]> Capture Date/Time:April 11, 2009; 20:10
Aperture/Shutter Speed: f/7.1
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ISO: 630
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I stopped in Hong Kong for 12 hours on my way out of Shenzhen. Took the standard ferry over to the Kowloon side for dinner, and took a panoramic shot of the skyline on the way. Hong Kong is basically a more crowded version of New York City in my book, and it perhaps has one of the most colorful skylines in the world. We had dinner at the top of one of the high-rises, and it was quite dramatic at 11pm when the lights started to turn off for the night, one by one.

Of course, this is a stitched panorama, and rotated into a "planet" effect after some curves adjustments in RAW.

Coast

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:35:56 -0600

]]> Capture Date/Time:April 8, 2009; 7:40
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ISO: 260
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A view across the bay from our hotel on the coast in Shenzhen. Lots of fog and haze. I think that's Hong Kong in the distance.

Roof Over The Prince

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:37:34 -0600

]]> Capture Date/Time:April 6, 2009; 12:55
Aperture/Shutter Speed: f/8; varied
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO: 200
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A shot of the roof of Prince Gong's Mansion located near Shichahai Lake, to the northwest of the Forbidden City in Beijing. The private residence of He Shen, a favorite minister of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). It was built in 1777, and it is wonderfully restored. The area was very crowded with tourists and others on holiday.