Stepping Back

a library of impressions

Full On Summer

First Family Camping Trip

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Goodbye, Summer. Welcome, Fall.

This was one of the best summers that I can remember. It was rarely hot, so the windows stayed open and the A/C remained off throughout most of the summer. Here are some of some recent pictures of the end of this summer. I’ve included thoughts and explanations about each shot in the captions.

Sunset — Every once and a while in the evening a warm yellow light will pour in through the windows and fill the room. When that’s the case, that means there’s a beautiful sunset outside. Here’s a shot from the back patio.

Sitting at Lake Michigan — A shot of a couple women sitting along Lake Michigan.

Evening light flowers — As the sun set I saw the light filling the pedals of these flowers outside my apartment.

Indiana Sunset — On my way to Indiana one weekend, I saw this incredible scene as I drove. I had to snap a picture.

Grape Vine Leaves — The back fence along the apartment building is filled with grape vines. The leaves are big and when it rains it creates great opportunities to take nice pictures.

{#vscocam #vsco #brownline #art #lincolnsquare #bricks #sticker #igerschicago #western} — I don’t always carry my camera with me, but there are many times when I want to capture something I see. With the camera on phones like the iPhone you can take a quality picture. It’s about composition at that point. Here’s some street art near the el train in my neighborhood.

Trees on fire? Nope. Just an Indiana sunset. {#vscocam #vsco #indiana #sunset #midwest #clouds #sky #orange #evening #summer} — Here’s a shot of an Indiana sunset from the driveway of my childhood home.

Walg — Sometimes I take pictures for myself. They are the everyday time of shot that doesn’t necessarily scream “artistic” but captures something I see nearly every day.

Lincoln Square — Night shots lend themselves for nice high contrast black and white shots. This is the sign leading into the main strip of my neighborhood.

Ticket Booth — Because we live in a German-American neighborhood we have events multiple times a year in which the smell of beer and brats fill the air and the lederhosen are brought out of the closets. This is one of the ticket booths for German-American festival.

Carnival prizes — At German-American fest there is a carnival set up in the parking lot. Here is a shot of some of the prizes.

Carnival Bokeh Balls — Sometimes taking a picture intentionally out of focus can create a cool “bokeh” effect.

Carnival Bear — Another prize from the German-American festival. (It reminded me of the bear from Toy Story 3.)

Carnival Ducks — Carnival duckies. Notice I chose I nice warm feel for this shot and chose for the focus to be very narrow.

Carnival — Beer and gambling – always a wise decision. I chose for this to be in black and white for a more dramatic feel.

Water on Tablecloth — It had been raining off and on throughout the evening. Water droplets collected on the table clothes. I chose a narrow depth of field for a neat effect.

Kid and car — As the night wrapped up, I saw this kid in the middle of the street playing with a toy car in between the double yellow line.

Yogurt Square bokeh — This is an intentionally out of focus shot of “Yogurt Square,” the local the frozen yogurt shop.

Lincoln Ave — Here’s a local shop that will be closing very soon. Apparently the owner has been here for over 20 years. No small feat for shops in this area.

Giddings Square Fountain — Lincoln Square’s most iconic feature is the fountain at the center of the square. Here it is in the evening street light.

Giddings Fountain — Here’s another shot of it in black and white.

Leaves — Street lights an set up for some hard lighting situations. I thought the light bouncing off these leaves looked pretty neat.

Gelato — It’s dangerous having a gelato place so close. The backlighting of the sign makes for a neat effect.

Fence Gate — He’s a shot of my front gate in the yellow lighting from the street lamp.

Night Branches — One of the more amazing aspects of modern DSLR cameras is their ability to take good quality shots in really low lighting situations without having to keep the shutter open for very long at all. This shot was taken at 1/40th of a second.

Grape Leaves — Here’s another shot of the grape leaves behind my place, but this time in the harsher light from a light over the doorway.

Heard some good jams tonight. {#vscocam #vsco #thevogue #igersindy #voguetheater #concert #tokyopoliceclub #indianapolis} — I recently went back to Indianapolis for a wedding and attended a spur of the moment show with a friend. Here’s another shot from my iPhone 5S. (It’s square because it’s on Instagram…)

Stopped by the house I grew up in one last time before it gets sold. Of course this called some netless table tennis with two friends I've had for over twenty years. I've spent many hours in this basement with these two friends. Goodbye, house. I'll proba — While in Indy, I stopped by the home I grew up in one last time. It looks to be sold very soon. The ping-pong table was still set up in the basement, and so I played one last game with two childhood friends that have spent a lot of time in that basement with me playing music.

Indiana. {#vscocam #vsco #shed #midwest #igersindy #greenwood} — This shot (also taken on my iPhone) is a picture of a shed in the backyard of one of my friend’s house. It just screams Indiana to me.

Instagram has a great community of creative users. The way that people use hashtags are also very creative. I once saw a post like this with the hashtag #roofline_envelope because he thought it looked like an envelope. If you’re on Instagram, you should check it out.

Yellow Flowers — I’m not sure what kind of flowers these are, but they seem to last through most of the summer. I really like them. And they lend themselves for some great pictures.

Cornfields — While in Indiana, we stayed out at Sarah’s mom’s place. The house is surrounded by fields of corn and soybeans.

Carthage — Indiana. What more can I say?

Cactus — Sarah’s mother’s place has dozens of cacti both inside and outside.

Withering Sunflowers — With the end of summer comes the end of many of the flowers.

Rain Drops — Raindrops along the roofline of my friend’s house.

Lamp — A lamp with the aperture wide open.

Indiana Windmills — On the drive between Indiana and Chicago you pass these fields of windmills. I can’t help but take pictures every time we drive by.

Schaumburg Boomers

I had no idea that Schaumburg, a suburb of Chicago, had a minor league baseball team. Some friends of ours invited us to spend the afternoon with them at a game on Sunday, and so we went. It was a beautiful day. Here are a few shots:

Sky — We had a beautiful sunny day with just a few clouds

Sky — The stadium was a bit small, but it had two nice grassy areas for families.

The kiddos at the baseball game — It was a hot and sunny day. Micah mostly ran around the whole time – here is the one moment he sat down.

Micah and sidewalk chalk — There was sidewalk chalk laying around, and Micah made good use of it.

Ezra in his stroller — Ezra chilling, enjoying the game and the kids running around.

Mommy and Micah walking down — Micah and mommy walk down to get a closer look.

Micah and Mommy at Baseball game — Snuggle time at the game — clearly engaged with the play to play action.

Micah and Mommy at Baseball — Enjoying the game on the blanket.

Sidewalk memories — Remembering the day.

A Summer Swim

My wife Sarah recently picked up a kiddie pool on clearance at Walgreens. She had the day off today, and it is a rather warm day, so we thought Micah might enjoy a “backyard” dip in the pool.

Lollapalooza 2012

Wasn’t allowed to bring my camera, so these are all from my phone. Awesome show. Jack White and Sigur Ros definitely stand out. Great day of weather, too.

Rory and me — Rory and I spent the day at Lollapalooza 2012

Please Pee on Floor — This was on the train on the way to Union Station

Bombay Bicycle Club — Bombay Bicycle club

The Crowd — This was the crowd for Bombay Bicycle Club, now imagine what it was for Sigor Ros and Jack White!

Trampled by Turtles — notice they don’t have a drummer.

Yep, that’s Jonsi singing into his guitar. SIGUR ROS!!!

Jonsi 2 — Jonsi playing the guitar like he does. And yes, that’s how close we were.

Jack White blue — Jack White! He had two separate bands that switch midway through. The first half was an all male band, then the second half was an all female band. Pretty cool stuff. Incredible musicians. I saw the White Stripes before, but this is just incredibly better.

jack black and white — Same in black and white

close up black and white — black and white version

piano — Jack White playing “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground.” Very cool to hear it with a full band. The picture is blurry because the entire crowd was shifting, shoving, moving, jumping. Couldn’t stand still.

IMG_0242_Snapseed — Here’s the switchover to the female band.

Some Summer Pics

Here are just a few of the pictures I’ve taken recently. To see more of my photography, visit either my photoblog or my flickr. (On the sidebar of the blog…)