Sunday, March 23, 2014

Little Glimpse of Spring !!!


After what has been one of the coldest and snowiest winters in recorded history of Chicago, all I am looking for  is some sign of Spring. Yesterday I found Crocus coming out in my front lawn.  If you look closely you can see the yellow of what will become the delicate flowers.  So nice !!  Just a little glimpse of Spring....


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Sunday, March 16, 2014

Chicago River Dyed Kelly Green to Celebrate St. Patrick's Day




Chicago has a very unique tradition to celebrate St. Patrick's day.  Yes, they dye the already greenish water bright Kelly green.  This tradition started in 1962 (you can read its history here ) and even though other cities have tried to copy it Chicago is the only city that can successfully dye the river the perfect St. Patrick's day green.  

Brownish powder dye is sprinkled into the river with a beer mug and as soon as it touches the water it magically starts to turn color.  There is a second smaller boat that follows the main boat to stir up the water and spread the dye.


Sightseeing cruise boat with a bagpiper band entertained the people on the boat as well as thousands of  people on the river banks who came out to the Chicago river.   




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Friday, February 14, 2014

Entwined Love ..


One of the things I like to do when I am walking on the beach is to find all of the jewels that wash up on the sand.  I found this entwined kelp on my early morning walk in Southern California.  Isn't it amazing that just a gentle toss of the waves and the kelp formed this shape of a heart.  It seemed so special to me that I wanted to share it with you on this special day... 

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Frozen Salt Creek


We have had some very cold and snowy days recently.  On 6th of January our lowest temperature was -16 F (- 26 C ).  It was so cold that everything just shut down, children got to stay home from school, commuter trains were totally out of schedule due to signal malfunctions, 2/3 of airplanes out of Chicago airport were cancelled , people went crazy and bought out everything at the grocery store before the storm hit. No milk, no eggs, no bread or produce.  All were sold out.....  Me?  I could not wait to get to the river to find what I could  photograph. Only problem was that I didn't have a car that I felt comfortable driving in the snow and ice, so I had to wait a few days until the streets were cleared. When I was finally able to leave my house I was rewarded with fantastic sights.  Most of the rivers in the area were completely frozen over but some like here under the dam, water still ran freely. At the Fox River a record number of Bald Eagles were spotted. The number of Bald Eagles in Illinois is second to Alaska to the photographers delight. Even with very limited camera equipment I was able to get some decent shots myself.     




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Sunday, January 5, 2014

My Goal


The whole middle area of America has been hit by two very big snow storms in less than one week.  The first one gave us between 12 inches to 14 inches of snow.  With no time for it to melt, the weather report is predicting another 12 inches of snow to blanket the whole area.  One of my goals for the year 2014 is to brave the cold and snow to go out and take as many photographs as possible of the winter scenes.  The weather sure has cooperated but without a 4 wheel drive car it has proven to be a much tougher challenge.

Between the two storms frigid temperatures has set in. Then the sun came out and it turned the whole snow covered areas into a picturesque photographers dream !!!