January 22, 2008

Framingham, MA (Just west of Boston)

I’ve been shooting for years and being in the right place at the right time to catch a moment does not happen often with me. Living in the city you tend to see more strange or interesting things to shoot more often than not. But at the same time, how often do you take your camera with you every time you go out?

This particular frame was shot at 1/15, F-18, ISO 100 @84mm and cropped at 16x8 aspect ratio.

I don’t take my camera with me as much as I should. I don’t for simple reasons really. For starters my camera is big and bulky. I have one lens that is a bit more versatile than the rest and works great in most situations. (24-105mm with image stabilization) I shoot with a Canon 5D and the 24-105 is attached most of the time and ready to go. But to carry it with me all the time can cause problems. One, if I leave it by mistake, chances are high I won’t get it back. I’d like to think people would call me to tell me they found my camera…but with something of such value, the good doer turns to the dark side. I know this from experience as I’ve left my camera in the past, never to see it again. (it was a 20D with a 18-55mm. Insurance covered it and I bought a better camera) As well, in the city, you increase your risk of being robbed when you carry an expensive camera. This is never happened to me, but sometimes you don’t want to add to the possibility of losing your identity.

Hand held due to high traffic on the road. Shot at: 1/250, F-4.5, ISO 100, @24mm

As you’re going to see, this entry isn’t about being in the right location at the right time with the right conditions and equipment, rather than being in the right place at the right time and working with what you've been given as fast as you can. I’ll explain…We’ve all been walking around or even driving around to see something funny, strange or witnessed the perfect conditions to take a shot, only to return with our camera to find that the moment has passed. I see this all the time, mainly with lighting conditions on a particular building with perfect clouds in the background. I return hours later and the sun has moved and the clouds are gone. A funny example of this…last year in Lincoln Park, Chicago, Clark street was under construction again. This time they were digging up the south bound side of the road and pouring in new cement. There was one point in the road that it was very tight, so cones were not visible, but safety tape was up. Someone pulled from a parking spot on the other side of the street to do a u-turn. They pulled right into the cement and the front of the car sunk down a 2 or 3 feet. I was standing about 50 feet from the scene when it happened. If I had my camera I could have got the shot of the look on their face when they saw what had happened. Now I know this is more of a headline sort of shot, or even one of those that you mail around to your friends with some clever one liner. I’d say that the shot you see above is most like this situation. I’m in Framingham, MA (just out side of Boston) and I’m driving by a frozen water reservoir after the rain about a mile from my hotel. I see that the thin layer of water on the ice has created a mirror effect. I didn’t have my camera on me, so I drove back to the hotel, picked up my camera and tripod and drove back to the location. By time I got back, it had started raining again, killing the mirror effect. I waited it out about 2 hours and the rain cleared for about 15mins. This was all the time I needed to get the shot I wanted. I pretty much ran across the street from where I was waiting, set up the tripod and took a few good shots before the sky’s opened up again.

I had to park at a dead-end road in a subdivision and walk though more than a foot of snow to reach this spot. Shot at 1/60, F-8.0, ISO 100 @32mm

Anytime I go on vacation or to a new city I take my camera equipment, no matter where it is. This part of my entry is about those moments when the right thing happens at the right location. As you can see in the snow shots below and above, a Nor’easter hit while I was visiting Framingham, MA, about a day after I took the mirrored island shots. I could see from looking out my hotel room that all the tree’s in the area were flocked with snow. I figured with all the water reservoir’s around the area that some great shots of the snow must be out there. After looking at a map, I set out to find them.

Shot at: 1/200, F-5.6, ISO 100 @80mm and cropped tighter.

After driving around for a few hours I found many places worth shooting. A few times I had to stop at a snow filled parking lot and hike into the trails to find my shots. It helped that my ride was all time 4x4, other wise this trip would have been shots of my car being pulled from the ditch by a tow-truck.

Shot at: 1/320, F-5.6, ISO 100 @58mm

Surrounded by water and every branch covered with snow, I was very lucky to be at the right location at the right time. I spent the next two days shooting the trees and trying to capture that silence the snow creates when falling from the skies. After three days, all the snow had fallen from the trees and melted.

Posted by Robert at 01:59 PM | Comments (0)

March 25, 2007

Car Crash on Lake shore Drive, March 24th

The Fog on March 24th in Chicago was thick as pea soup. Visibility on and near the lake must have been 25-50 yards at best. From my apartment in River West I have an eastern exposure. I could see the wall of Fog engulfing the shoreline and thought I might be able to get a shot or two of a fogged skyline.

Driving to North Beach for easy parking and access as well as a great view of the skyline, I came across this wrecked Rang Rover. These photos are not over exposed…that’s the fog. If you look at the photos you can see that the firemen used the Jaws of Life to cut open the top/front of the car to remove the passengers. As well both passenger doors were pried open. Both air bags were deployed, telling me that at least two people were in the car. The living space in the car was not compromised, but not much room was left after the accident. I could see no blood anywhere in the car so I'm guessing the people were ok and survived.

After I took a few shots and was leaving the parking lot I wondered what had happened. I looked at the bridge at North Avenue and Lake Shore Drive. I could see in the side of the hill where the car had gone over the median and slid down the hill just before the Drive passes over North Ave. A lamp post from LSD was also knocked down and was sitting on the other side of the on-ramp to the Drive. As well you can see all the mud on one side of the Rover.

I did a search the next day on the web to see if I could find a police report or maybe a news report…Nothing came up. I’m guessing that the car was not removed because it could not be pulled or towed onto a truck.. As well the car was a complete loss. If you own a Rang Rover and need a floor mat or maybe a rear light cover its about the only thing worth salvaging from the wreck. But I’d guess if you could afford a car like this then you won’t be coming down to North Beach to steal a rear taillight.

Posted by Robert R Gigliotti at 10:43 AM | Comments (1)