Fall Farm Work

Along with another fall color shot, Spring Valley gave me some fine images of a farmer with his team working the field. Up and back, one row at a time, constantly talking gently to his two fine partners.

Farm Birds

Part of Spring Valley is a farm, with farmhouse and barn and several animals. Up near the henhouse this chicken posed atop the fence, while a hawk was soaring above looking for its next meal.

Spring Valley

One of my assignments actually took me to Spring Valley Nature Preserve, where a high school encampment was an exceptional field trip experience with actors in costume teaching students. In this beautiful setting, I finished my work and headed to the car, stopping along the way to collect these images.

I like the experiment of shooting landscapes in the portrait format. Gives the viewer a different perspective.

Look Up

One never knows when an image might catch the eye in an unexpected place. Or angle, in this case. I liked the arrow that showed the exit from Northside Park in a parking lot. Once I had the pic in my laptop, all I needed to do was flip it up. Between the crack in the asphalt and the shapes of previous paintings, the details make this an image I will definitely use some day. A poster background, perhaps!

Northside

Two more images from Northside Park, including limestone in a large bundle awaiting installation onto a lagoon as part of a restoration program. The other image features a strong tree as seen reflected in a quiet portion of the lagoon.

SUNDAY POSTER

On the Road

At this time of year, most of the pictures I take cannot appear in this blog as they will have been taken for various high school yearbooks. This fall, a few of the assignments yielded a half-hour or an hour of available time for a stop along the way for some more personal shots.

A visit to Northside Park in Wheaton generated an interesting spider web on a bridge along with a building with character.

Final Jump & Closing

After one final jump we complete our visit to Dunham Woods Horse Show with that gratuitous "The End" shot as one of the younger participants walks his partner back toward the stable area.

Back to the Jumps

The highlight of the horse show is still the jumps, and the contestants were back at work after the hounds left. Here are two more leaps in action.

Hounds and the Mad Hatter

While no fox hunt was scheduled on the day of the Dunham Woods Horse Show, a highlight of the afternoon was a short demonstration of the pack of hounds that will lead the fall series of hunts. The other image is another look at the tailgate party, where an entire table was set for a girl named Alice and her acquaintance from Wonderland.

High Class Tailgate

One of the enjoyable features of the Dunham Woods Horse Show is a tailgate party, with many of the setups not in or on a tailgate. One vehicle showed up for a true tailgate party, however. A Rolls Royce Bentley from the postwar 1940s, immaculately shined and with its tailgate tucked into a nice little tent.

The classic car was worth the effort to go to the show, just to see it.

At a Gallop

As the jumper lands and turns into a full gallop, the strength and speed of the horse is on full display. I love the look here as the rider looks to the right and the horse looks ahead, two pairs of eyes in tandem, working perfectly together.

The second image was an experiment that started when I caught the glint of sun on a horseshoe. Playing with the image, I enhanced the glint beyond reality and realized I had a natural for a title slide.

SUNDAY POSTER

Comin' At You

The jumpers do several types of jump in many directions. Here they come right at us.

Team Jumps

After the three members of a Fox Hunt Team each jump the fence from the ring, they take a lap around several other jumps and line themselves up for a team jump. Lots of interest in watching the staging of the three riders and the three horses to the unison needed for this jump.

Jumpers

One of the things I found out was that the large group of riders in a fox hunt is made up of hunt teams, groups of three who join together. At times, the teams will leave from a riding ring, taking a loop around the ring and jumping a hedge arrangement to join the hounds. Here we see two of the horses clearing the jump and leaving the ring.

All Ages Welcome

As befits an activity steeped in tradition, equestrian events include participants from a wide variety of ages, with the traditions thus handed down from generation to generation.

To the Ring

On the way toward the ring, I saw equestrians of all ages headed to the competition, working through their paces, preparing for the competitions. The color, the tradition, the raw beauty of the horses all contribute to the irresistible attraction of the show.

Dunham Woods Horse Show

Along the route from home to Church is Dunham Woods, host to the oldest Horse Show in the State of Illinois. On the search for some good Fox Hunt images, I dropped by the Dunham Woods Horse Show, having been told that a hunt was on the schedule.

While as it turned out there was no hunt, the visit generated several strong images. During the course of the show I learned a lot, saw several jumps and demonstrations, watched a tailgate competition be judged . . . and found out when to come back for the fox hunt.

In the next several posts we will look at images from the 2010 Dunham Woods Horse Show.

Sunday Poster

Each Sunday I will feature a poster, featuring a quote or quip, a thought or a Bible verse, each one backed by one of my photos.
Enjoy

Turning the Skyline Inside Out

Loved the skyline shots taken from Mystic Blue so much that I had to take a little play time with some of the images. Changing the Polar Coordinates curves and flips a horizontal image into a globe-like view. Here we have two opposite looks, one wrapping the skyline around the globe and one wrapping it inside.

Dusk

As dusk falls over downtown Chicago, watching the many lights click on is quite beautiful. Here we see an image of the downtown area as the lights come on, followed by a closeup of the iconic Adler Planetarium on a peninsula reaching out into Lake Michigan.

Millennium Park & the Prudential

Look closely at the group of buildings seen here and you can find evidence of Millennium Park. The Silvery panels of the bandshell are seen just beyond some of the sailboats parked in the harbor. Most interesting to me, a lifelong Chicago area resident, is to look just to the right of Millennium to see the Prudential Building, dwarfed by the Aon and other skyscrapers. Of course, that was the tallest building in Chicago for several years.

In the other image, one of the sailboats heads in toward the harbor making the scene look just ready to be turned into a poster. Guess I should start looking for a quotation!

Two of Three

Two interesting clumps of buildings surrounding two of the three tallest buildings in Chicago. One features the Aon Building, the other features the John Hancock Center. Perhaps we will see the Willis Tower before the lake cruise is complete.

Lake Michigan Cruise

Labor Day weekend was a great time to cash in one of our Groupons, and we did. A great bargain gave us tickets on Mystic Blue, a Lake Michigan dinner cruise ship, and we loved the entire event. The food was excellent, the coffee was great, a nice glass of wine was included, and the staff on board was friendly and efficient. The two hours went by quickly, and the star of the show was downtown Chicago.
We boated south from Navy Pier just beyond Adler Planetarium and Soldier Field, then we turned around and headed back. Perhaps five miles in two hours, all in perfect view of the skyline of Chicago. We will look at some of the views in the next several posts. Here we see Mystic Blue at the pier before boarding and the creative logo I developed from one of the photos I collected. We will look at more in the next post.

To the Bridge

We return to the Prairie Path in Wayne, seeing a man walking toward the new bridge seen far down the path. If the man were to stop and look across the path to his left, he would see the powerful green trees and the small retention pond behind it in the full blue of a summer day.

Prarie Path Bridge

In nearby Wayne, a portion of the Prairie Path through DuPage County was closed for several months as a new bridge was installed over the single railroad track. This is one of the freight lines that have been subject of controversy as more trains are now allowed to use the line.

A short walk to and over the bridge yielded some interesting images.