Tag: Photography

No Sense Of Time

Seth Anderson0 comment

No Sense of Time

Better in Lightbox

Both Metra and Amtrak use these rails to link to Union Station and the Ogilvie Transportation Center so they are quite active with trains. Shot with my Nikon 18mm-200mm lens, and converted to black and white in Photoshop using the Alien Skin Exposure 3 plugin. If this area of the West Loop wasn’t so fouled with diesel smoke, I’d set up a tripod here, and get a better, long exposure shot, maybe even a photo that included a CTA train in the track in the upper right of the frame, but it is, and I’m impatient anyway.

Caught Without A Ticket

Seth Anderson0 comment

Caught Without A Ticket

I know I’m probably repeating myself1 but the shadows under the El tracks were just too richly inviting to ignore. Franklin Street, Little Hell2 area. Shot using a Tokina 12mm-24mm lens, converted to black and white in Photoshop with the help of Alien Skin’s Exposure 3 plugin.

better in Lightbox

Footnotes:
  1. I repeat myself under stress, I repeat myself under stress [↩]
  2. aka River North [↩]

links for 2010-10-20

swanksalot0 comment

Family version I Ching – Richard Wilhelm translation

swanksalot0 comment

I Ching, Family version of Richard Wilhelm translation

This is the inscription on the hardback version of the I Ching I have, and have carried around for most of my adult life.1 Originally printed in 1966, Bollingen Series. There is a lot of subtext here, but I won’t bore you with a description.

The Chinese characters below my name are the transliteration of my last name, as assigned to me when I studied Beijing Hua at UT-Austin. An De Sen. Quiet Virtuous Forest, as my first Chinese teacher told me. The other character is “sheng” which translates into “born”. Again, there is subtext out the yin-yang, but I won’t bore you with a delineation of it. If you really want to know, bring me a couple of bottles of red wine, and drink them with me: I’ll tell you more than you want to hear.

This edition of the I Ching has a forward by Carl Jung, oft read, oft quoted. I suspect that more modern translations of the I Ching might speak to us more clearly, but that doesn’t matter. My Chinese was never proficient enough to make my own translations.

For over ten years, I kept a dedicated journal where I wrote down the questions and answers related to throwing the coins: my last entry was years ago, but I keep my spidery prose on my shelf. Just in case. Has it helped me? Probably. Part of the charm/mystique of the I Ching is the oblique meaning of the text. One can interpret meaning as it applies to one’s own life; sometimes even accurately.

I am an atheist, and have been as long as I was sentient, but the I Ching isn’t religion, it is aided contemplation. Part of the procedure of throwing the I Ching coins is thinking deeply and seriously about whatever the question of the moment is. I consider the I Ching results as tapping into the subconscious mind, that part of the brain which is active while sleeping, or otherwise occupied. Do you ever wake up in the morning with a perfect answer to a problem you’ve faced? This is that.

Footnotes:
  1. I’ve moved it a dozen times or more, because I’ve moved seemingly a gazillion times [↩]

Remnant of 1927

swanksalot0 comment
Remnant of 1927

Remnant of 1927, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

Inside a book, no idea from where originally, but I’ve kept it for many years, especially because I like the phrase: “There is no religion higher than truth".

Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: John S
Flash: Off
Film: Ina’s 1935

eBooks are pale substitutes for real books: they have no extended history, nothing stuck in between pages.

eBooks have a function, but I hope we don’t, as a society, discard real books in our haste to digitize every goddamn thing on the planet.

Farmer’s Gin

swanksalot0 comment

Farmer's Gin

Organic botanical gin, at that. Hadn’t heard of this before yesterday’s sojourn to Whole Foods, but I like it.

Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: John S
Flash: Off
Film: Ina’s 1935

in this age of everything artisanal and organic, you now have Farmer’s Gin. It’s a small-batch production from the people who make Crop Harvest Earth organic vodkas, based on grains from organic farms in the upper Midwest and infused with classy herbs like elderflower, lemon grass and angelica, besides the required juniper.

It’s fragrant, a bit floral and not as bone-dry and piney as a typical London gin. You might spike lemonade with it, and appreciate the 93.4 proof. I like it neat, on the rocks, with a generous squirt of lime

Via Florence Fabricant of The New York Times.

Actually, after I took this photo, I added a splash of Vya red Vermouth

bonus: Onion video that caused a bit of a ruckus at the Chicago Tribune, and got Chief Innovation Office Lee Abrams suspended:
VH1 Reality Show Bus Crashes In California Causing Major Slut Spill

Black and White Upreach

Seth Anderson0 comment

Black and White upreach

View in Lightbox

Shot with a Hipstamatic1. The north branch of the Chicago River has more and more places that are pedestrian friendly.

No idea what the title even means, to be honest. Naming photographs is sometimes difficult, especially when one takes several thousand a year.

Footnotes:
  1. Lens: John S / Flash: Off / Film: BlacKeys SuperGrain [↩]

Now I Am Busy

Seth Anderson0 comment

Now I am busy

Taken with Hipstamtic for iPhone, than modified in SwankoLab.1 Lightbox version

The infamous Kinzie Street bridge, where the tour bus of the Dave Matthews Bus dumped out 100 gallons of sewage, just as a boatful of sightseers passed below. Ewww. Also where a former Daley aide allegedly committed suicide.

I should have straightened the photo, but I didn’t, and now kind of like the crookedness.

Footnotes:
  1.  using Noir Fixer, Grizzle Fix, and Vinny’s BL04 [↩]

Abandoned Schiltz Sign on West Grand

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Abandoned Schlitz sign on West Grand

Taken with the newish Ina’s 1935 film addition to Hipstamatic. Located on a wall at the southwest corner of the Damen/Grand intersection. There are apparently less than ten of these Schlitz globe signs still existing in Chicago. Most are better preserved than this one. In fact, some might even be given “landmark” status.



The Schlitz brewing company of Milwaukee was the most prolific builder of tied houses in Chicago. Designed by the architectural firm of Frohmann & Jebsen, Schlitz tied houses are generally executed in a revival style such as Queen Anne or Baroque with varying levels of accuracy and detail. One common factor in most Schlitz tied houses are the distinctive globes encircled by a belt, as if Schlitz had a stranglehold on the world. Another common feature is the alternating red and cream face brick which can be found in different patterns.

(click to continue reading Tied Houses | Forgotten Chicago | Chicago History, Architecture, and Infrastructure..)

Like this one:

Schlitz Trade Mark

Not Knowing Is Just Fine

Seth Anderson0 comment

Not Knowing is Just Fine

A photo taken at the Japanese garden at the Chicago Botanic Garden, manipulated a few days later in SwankoLab.1 Lightbox version.

The cloth rope tied around the rope is supposedly a Do Not Enter sign.

Title is a poor translation of a Zen phrase, rendered at Wikiquote as:

知らぬが仏

  • Shiranu ga hotoke.
  • Literally: Not knowing is Buddha.
Footnotes:
  1. using Jerry’s Developer, Vinny’s CO34, and Zero [↩]

Urban Jungle

Seth Anderson0 comment

Urban Jungle

iPhone photo taken from Riverbend, then manipulated on the iPhone with SwankoLab12

Click here for lightbox version

Footnotes:
  1. using Jerry’s Developer, Vinny’s CO34, and Zero [↩]
  2. actually ran it through SwankoLab twice, but don’t recall which chemicals I used first [↩]