Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge – From Tots to Titans

From mighty projects to children’s playthings, construction is in full swing for Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge this week.  You don’t have to go too far to come across construction of one kind or another in downtown Chicago.  Onward and upward!

It was an extremely gloomy day when we visited Heartland of America Park in Omaha and I was finding it difficult to get enthusiastic about taking pictures. I was desperate for some color but it wasn’t until we were about to leave when the familiar bright yellow of a construction crane, down by the railroad tracks, caught my eye (which is rather ironic considering I’m using this picture in a black & white photo challenge.)

Why is it that so often when we visit places of interest they’re undergoing renovation or repair! Imagine traveling hundreds if not thousands of miles to take a picture of something only to find that it’s swathed in scaffolding!  Of course, these days with modern technology at our fingertips, we can visit websites ahead of time to make sure everything is as it should be, but years ago photographers didn’t have the benefit of Google.

One can imagine Felix Bonfils arriving at the Sphinx at Giza after a long and exhausting journey only to be told that they’d ‘got the builders in.’

“Sorry about this, mate, but someone knocked a bit more off his conk last week and we’ve had to bring the scaffolders over from one of the pyramids, although frankly I don’t know what they expect us to do about it.” Bonfils would throw his tripod down in the sand in a fit of Gallic fury and mutter, “Sacre bleu!”

Fortunately, the Old Courthouse wasn’t our only reason for visiting St. Louis, although we did get a good view of the work in progress from the top of the Arch.

Sometimes construction can involve a bit of destruction too. Is it the child in us that enjoys watching things being knocked down? I made sure to take some pictures when they demolished the old village hall in Arlington Heights to make room for the new, much larger one.

Maybe some of the operators of these giant cranes, bulldozers and mechanical claws got their start at the Kohl Children’s Museum in Glenview.  I imagine many a tot’s hand that eagerly grasped the controls in this construction exhibit has gone on to bigger things, perhaps even the next giant skyscraper in downtown Chicago.

For more on Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge go to Anything Construction Related.

 

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APAW – Contrasting Colors

It’s all about colors just recently. This week, Nancy Merrill has chosen Contrasting Colors as her topic for the Photo A Week Challenge and, using the color wheel in her post, orange and blue would appear to be quite a good combination for this subject. images include a stained glass window by Marc Chagall at the Chicago Art Institute, a table top in a coffee shop in Evanston, restaurant umbrellas in Texas, and a table setting at The Flower & Garden Show in Rosemont as well as scenes from the Chicago Botanic Garden, the 63rd Annual Chicago Powwow in Elk Grove Village and Goebbert’s Pumpkin Farm in South Barrington.

For more on Nancy’s Photo A Week Challenge go to Contrasting Colors.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge – Black & White

This week, Cee has chosen Black & White as the colors for her Fun Foto Challenge. These days it’s relatively easy to convert images to black & white provided you have the right picture. Finding pictures of things that are primarily black & white without doing any kind of manipulation was rather more difficult but here are some random shots that seemed to fit the bill.  I took several pictures of the young man playing the xylophone but although this one wasn’t necessarily the best, I chose it because I noticed that the woman crossing the street behind him was also wearing a black & white shirt.

For more on Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge go to Black and White

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge – That Toddlin’ Town (City)

I’m a city girl at heart and although I’ve lived in the suburbs for many years now, there’s nothing I love better than a trip downtown, which is why I was so pleased to see the subject for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Cityscapes. Many thanks to Patti for providing us with this challenge. Although I was born in London, I now live near another great city, Chicago, which is where these images were captured.

For more on the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge go to Cityscapes.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge – Colorful Monotones

This week, Cee has chosen Colorful Monotones as the subject for her Fun Foto Challenge. I don’t know if the ceilings in the Minnesota State Capitol Building are strictly monotone but the golden glow seems to give them that overall appearance.

For more on Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge, go to Colorful Monotones (one single color).

APAW – Lit From Within

The subject for Nancy Merrill’s Photo A Week Challenge is Lit From Within and, although I hadn’t intended to participate this week, the opportunity to capture some appropriate pictures presented itself quite by chance and so here is my take on the challenge.  For the past three weeks I’ve been spending much of the time at the hospital visiting my 93-year-old mother-in-law.  Sadly she has reached the stage where nothing more can be done for her and has been moved to more comfortable surroundings in hospice there.  The only bright spot in these rather gloomy days has been the sight of the Christmas Village that has been set up in the lobby of the hospital. Apparently, the man who owns all these lovely ornaments brings them in every Christmas for everyone to enjoy.  Thank you, whoever you are!  You have helped to lighten our load.

For more on Nancy’s Photo A Week Challenge go to Lit from Within.

Pull Up A Seat – For Art’s Sake!

In my experience, most statues of people seem to portray them in a standing position, as if showing a person worthy of a statue in a sitting posture would be to give the impression that they were somehow guilty of slacking. However, in my travels I have come across one or two inanimate posteriors that have been allowed to sink to a supporting chair or plinth. The first three images are of an art installation call ‘Borders’ in Grant Park in downtown Chicago back in 2013.

It would seem that Abraham Lincoln wasn’t above sitting down occasionally for a quiet think or to read a good book, as seen here in Chicago’s Grant Park, Freeport in Illinois and Louisville, Kentucky.

 

Children can sometimes be seen sitting down but mostly only in statues.  In real life you’re lucky if you can get them to keep still for more than two minutes!  These shots were taken at the Green Bay Botanical Garden, Wisconsin and Spring Valley Nature Center in Schaumburg, Illinois.

While some artist’s models are lucky enough to score a comfortable chair whilst sitting for a sculptor, others find themselves perched on a cold, hard slab or a nubby rock as shown here at the Frederik Meijer Sculpture Garden in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

And the more classical element only rate a less-than-comfy tree stump to prop up their rear ends, as these pictures, taken at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, show.

If anyone asks me to sit for a statue, I’ll be sure to specify that I want, at the very least, to be parked on a bench, seat or preferably a well-cushioned armchair.  Images captured in Elk Grove, Illinois, Sioux Falls in South Dakota and Green Bay Botanic Garden, Wisconsin.

For more on the Pull Up A Seat Photo Challenge go to Photo Challenge of places we sit…or might sit…or art about sitting.