Category Photography

While Springfield Illinois might not have a horribly exciting nightlife for people interested in those types of activities, Springfield does actually have a downtown.  I took this from the top of the Hilton.  I wished I would have brought my tripod again, but I was up there for a friend’s wedding reception, so I didn’t want to lug it around all night.  It still worked out ok though, even after my multiple captain and cokes.  I was able to basically lean up against the window and brace my self against it while I took some shots.  This one came out best, but it was still a tough choice picking this one over another similar angle I had taken earlier around sunset with a streak of bright orange sky in the background.  I ended up going with this one though because I liked the way the city was just glowing.

“Nightlife”

Springfield’s power plant is ran by City Water, Light, and Power, the largest municipally owned utility in Illinois.  The CWLP coal fired power plant sits at the edge of Lake Springfield, an artifical resevoir formed between 1931 and 1935 by building a dam across Sugar Creek.  The lake was created both as a water source for Springfield, and as a cooling lake for the CWLP power plant.

This is one of those iconic buildings that stands out to me from my childhood.  You can’t drive in or around Springfield with out noticing its massive steam stacks.  I probably thought they were cloud generating machines as a kid.  We also had a boat and would spend many summer days on Lake Springfield, with the power plant always in the background.

“CWLP”

Whew, it has been a crazy week!  For those that don’t know, I am getting married in 3 weeks.  We are having a beach sunset wedding in Fort Myers, Florida.  After the wedding, we will be out of the country for a week on a cruise.  I am very excited, and I still intend on taking photos for my Photo 52 Project, but they may not be posted right away (the main one would be the week we’ll be out of the country, as I won’t have any access to the internets).  This weekend we had our couples Wedding Shower, and the whole week has been crazy busy leading up to it.  I was walking around the hall snapping some photos while everyone was getting things ready, and this is my favorite.  This is my Mom, my Aunt Sue (the woman who introduced me to my Fiancée), and my Sister, all working hard getting the food ready to go before the Shower.  Heather and I are lucky to have such wonderful and amazing people in our lives that will help out and do what ever is needed of them for us, and while this picture is only of a few people, I speak for everyone in our family, and our close friends.  Thank you everyone for an awesome weekend!

“Preparations”

Another abandoned house?  Yup!  This was more of an abandoned mansion though.  There were many neat things about this house, and I would have loved to get closer to it, but there were signs that the property was still watched after.  There was a new chain link fence out front, plus alarm signs and stickers all over the place, and some other little signs that just didn’t make me feel comfortable walking up in to the yard and around it too much.  So I popped on the telephoto lens and shot from the fence for the most part.  I can only imagine how grand this house must have been when it was first built, but now is just crumbling apart.  There were signs that someone tried to restore it at one point, but I think they gave up on their efforts too.  This is a tower that looked like was part of a breakfast nook in the front corner of the house.  It was pretty cool looking with its copper roof and windows going around the top.  I would have loved to get a look inside this place too, and wish I knew more about the history of it, who built it, and what happened to them that the house is now mostly abandoned.

“Sanctuary”

Another dreary sunless day in Central Illinois.  We have had a lot of rain lately, combined with above freezing temperatures has lead to a lot of excess water in the area.  I decided to drive out to the Taylorville Lake dam and see if it was overflowing any water.  Well, it indeed was, and this is the most I have ever seen it.  On a typical summer day, this dam will be dry, and you can walk down in the overflow area.  The roaring sound alone from the water spilling over the dam was awesome.  It also made for some cool shots.  I used my 70-300 lens on my tripod with a remote shutter release for this shot.  I was pretty happy with how it came out and I only made a few minor tweaks to it in Picasa.  I’m looking forward to warmer/sunnier weather though.

“Cascade”

This week’s photo trip lead me to a cemetery, Oak Hill in Taylorville, Illinois to be specific.  I stopped at a couple different locations in the cemetery and shot a couple different things, but this specific mausoleum stood out.  The (what I assume were) once shiny copper doors are now a brilliant turquoise color, and fairly ornate when compared to the other mausoleums in the cemetery.  There was also an artificial rose placed on the handle of one of the doors (no I did not put it there), which really caught my eye.  It was very cool looking, and as I have said before I like old, run down, and aged things…  I don’t know why that stuff fascinates me, but it does.  The title of today’s image is the name on the mausoleum.

“Ricks”

Ok, this was a fun one.  Who doesn’t like star gazing, and moon gazing?  Just lay back and stare up at the sky.  It is Thursday evening (although this won’t post until Sunday as is my Photo 52 tradition), and it is a BEAUTIFUL evening out with crystal clear skies!  It is very unseasonable warm right now (in the 60’s during the day, and it was still in the high 50’s this evening).

Sure there are gazillions of pictures of the moon out there, many much better, but this one is MINE.  I got to use many of my camera toys tonight too, so that was some additional fun.  Had the camera on the tripod, with the remote shutter release, and my 300mm zoom lens with hood zoomed in as far as she’d go.  Tonight was practically full moon, so the moon was VERY bright (tomorrow night is 100% full moon).  This made it a bit easier to get a nice detailed shot as I was able to turn the ISO down to 100 and for this shot I used a 1/320th shutter speed.  After some cropping and a touch of sharpening in Picasa, I was pretty excited with my results!  The moon is over 220,000 miles away from Earth.  Let’s bring it a bit closer (you’re going to want to click this image to see the bigger size).

“Lunar”

It was a bright sunny day, but still pretty cold out (although not as bad as it has been, it got to 43 today).  My original destination today was a rock quarry in Nokomis, but on the way there we went by an abandoned house out the middle of nowhere practically.  I really like abandoned and run-down property, I’m not sure why but I always find it interesting.  To see what it is like now and imagine what it once was.  This house looked like it had been abandoned for many years.  The back door was missing and windows were broken.  The odd thing was though that there looks like a full closet of clothes hung up.  I wanted to go inside, but I could see from the missing back door that the floor had holes in it and there was a deep basement underneath that.  I love taking pictures, but I’m not about to get my self stuck in the basement of an abandoned house out in the middle of no where, so I limited my self to snapping photos outside.  I had many shots I liked, but I loved the long shadow in this picture and the haphazard way the power cable is just hanging off the side of the house.

“Disconnected”