Colour, Light and Screaming Heads

October can be a terrible month for Photographers.  All the wonderful colour and light in the changing landscape of Fall can create an aching finger constantly clicking  at everything at every turn.  This season has been particularly good as temperatures have not fallen too suddenly and the Thanksgiving weekend display in Algonquin park was superb.

Morning at Park Lake

I can't resist rivers, waterfalls and leaves at this time.  However, with only the G12 Canon, it's a challenge to get the shutter speed down enough without an ND filter to soften the rush of water a bit.  Pool reflections are much easier.

The slow-water effect works better here (subject in shade)  taken here at Bracebridge's scenic Falls where the Muskoka river was damned for the local 19th Mill.

Bracebridge is going to be worth a second visit as the old town has many interesting photographic possibilities:

Railway bridge and  River Walk Café

  

Leaves, as always, are the main story and you simply have to make them front and centre.

Screaming Heads

If you are ever travelling near Burk's Falls, about 45 minutes north of Huntsville be sure search out the dramatic personal sculptures of local artist, Peter Camani.  West from the town on Midlothian Ridge Road is a private field with a collection of his remarkable art.  I love the fact there are no signs or directions to the field and it's hidden from the road by trees, creating a sense of personal discovery, so drive slowly it's easy to miss.   

Quoting from his website: "...the massive project, both multi-dimensional and multi-planed, inviting observation and interpretation on levels analogical, allegorical, anagogical and beyond."  We were left with those very impressions.

Here are some more images.  As the evening light was falling we were unable to cover the whole site, so an early morning visit is on a future wish list:

We called this one Mr. Toothache (in Pain)

Have fun!  Bring the family and be emotional

Note:  All images taken with Canon G12 with polorizing filter and adjusted in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop.

"And then, when I went to Chicago..." Sun Ra

Millenium Park Stage

"Bright Lights, Big City" Jimmy Reed's great Chicago Blues classic is what I had hoped to hear in my first visit to Chicago but sadly I didn't hear  that blues style at all.  Nevertheless, the Bright Lights, Big City label is right on today and Chicago turned out to be a big surprise.  I'm not sure if the skyscrapers are a massive façade hiding a troubled urban blight but what I saw was wonderful.  Environmentally conscious, clean, graffiti-free, culturally dynamic and architecturally amazing, Chicago beats Toronto by miles.

A view across the Chicago Tribune Plaza on Michigan Avenue, part of Chicago's Magnificent Mile, where the controversial 26 -foot Marilyn Monroe Statue was placed in July. They're not sure she belongs in the Windy City. The general cleanliness of the downtown was very impressive.

Chicago's Architectural Institute's First Lady boat tour provided a great lecture on the architectural story of Chicago. Most of the next images were taken on this tour.

Wonderful reflections resemble Art Deco era.  Mysteriously each pattern is very different on any individual window. This skyscraper called "333 Waker Drive."    

Another part of the same building:

There is an endless supply of great photographic possibilities in the towers:  Below the Aqua tower (middle) where each apartment has a unique balcony design to deflect the wind. It's the tallest skyscraper in Chicago designed by a female architect

More reflections:

Thirty-Eight moveable bridges span the chicago river and each has a distinctive operator's rooms from the simple to elaborate:

Millenium Park's famous "Bean" and "People Fountains" are great attractions:

Legacy Tower behind "Bean" in Millennium Park

Under the Bean:

Walk a little further south and you find the treasures of the Chicago Art Institute:

Tang Dynasty, 9thC. women on horse

The modern bamboo artistry of Japan's Notoru

Contemplating Hopper's iconic "Nighthawks"

But art is on the street too:

Outside the Museum of Modern Art - 

This street art is a sad reminder.  T-shirts representing the young people who died in Chicago and area schools this past year:

Night Life: In search of the Blues

He said he was the world's greatest Blues singer.

Where's the graffiti?  Chicago Transit has ordered 300 new cars from Bombardier.

But everywhere there is this wonderful variety of buildings:

Willis Tower (formerly Sears) - World's Highest 1974-1997.  103 elevators

Harbor Point residential and the old Navy Pier

The famous and lovely Wrigley Building (clock) is now dwarfed by the Trump Tower, Chicago's second highest and ugliest?

The John Hancock Building, Chicago's 4th Highest.  

Top of the Chicago Tribune. Built after the Cathedral of Rouen's Butter Tower. The tower incorporates rocks from all over the world (Below)

Finally, half a day is not enough to explore the Chicago Botanical Gardens, 20 miles north of the city: