First and foremost this is a photography blog. A place for me to share my photos and discuss technique, but please don't be surprised at the occasional off-topic post.
Obviously this blog will be photo-intensive. If you have a slow internet connection, please be patient.
Shooting Down the Middle of the Road is aimed at the Journey-person level photographer.
Okay, so this is the last post on the zombie march, as much fun as it's been.
I'm going to repeat my warning from the last post: NOTE to the regular readers who are used to cute, fluffy squirrels and happy little song birds... These zombie posts contain exactly what you'd think of when you hear "zombie". A lot of stage make-up gray faces and latex flesh wounds and currant-juice fake blood. If this is not what you signed on for, please feel free to look away now. Personally, I found it all to be a lot of "Hey look someone in make up", but some people on the street were legitimately startled by some of the participants. Personally (and this is something I'll go into later) the only thing I found creepy were some of the contact jobs. Even under all the grease paint, latex and Rice Krispies (more on that in later too) I still expect people's eyes to look like, you know, normal eyes.
So if this is not your thing, feel free to back-button now. The next post I make will be back to the cute, fluffy, normal stuff you're used to from me. :)
But if you're into zombies... you have to become one.
The event was planned on the internet. There's a website and a Facebook site and everything. You have to wonder if this is one of the odder things Mark Z and the Twitter folks have found their inventions being employed for. "Yeah, we created this great way for people to find old school friends and to chat with their cousins ... and it was just used to set up 2000 people to dress like zombies and attack Chicago."
If it's not one of the oddest things they've been used for, I want to know what *is*. :)
Anyway, the website said that if people needed help with make up, there would be people set up to help you. But most people showed up either read to go, or they just bloodied themselves there or they made their friends undead.
These two girls were two of the first to show up and start getting ready near the Bean.
I posted these girls before. They were busy helping others get set up. When I looked at their "victim", I saw this...
So I had to ask why they were sticking Rice Krispies to her face. Turns out that they put liquid latex over the cereal and it gives the texture you can see on Ginny's face above. Neat trick!
I mentioned that the one thing that made me freak out a little - among all the gray and green and white paint and all the latex and fake blood - was the contacts people were using to do bizarre things with their eyes. Like this zombie - with one blown eye and one normal.
Or these two. I wish I had the aperture set a little better, so you could see the blue eyes in the blonde girl's eyes a bit better. They're the freakishly light blue ones that make her look almost irisless. And of course, there was scads of red eyes. I wonder how many people went home and tried to use 'red-eye removal' on their photos. :)
Once everyone was made up, we started moving all 2000 zombies and 100 photographers down Michigan Ave.
Crossing streets was fun. We um... annoyed traffic a few times.
Some of the tourists were a little taken aback. I don't think this was included in the brochures. :)
At one point the traffic problems got us noticed by the cops. They were totally cool with everything, and this guy - a bike cop - basically became our escort, helping us not, you know, completely hose traffic in the Loop. He was also totally game for playing along with everything.
When there was a lull or a rest stop at a landmark, certain Zombie Dramas would break out. I want to note that these skits were completely ad libbed, but also completely consensual. No actual 'innocent by-standers' were actually grabbed by the zombies. Even this guy was totally on board with being "attacked".
This guy was so into getting his picture taken with the Zombies that he kissed anyone who sat next to him on the cheek. (I don't think he actually made contact, because a.) creepy and b.) make-up... on both parties.
When we stopped in front of NBC, the "Zombie Hunter" went after one of the zombies with a camera.
He lost that battle.
But when he got up to try again, this little tiny person (I wish I had a shot of her face - she was an adult, but actually smaller than me. And in feetsy pajamas!) jumped on his back.
And held on but good until she took him down.
As we moved through town, the locals began whipping out whatever camera they had. dSLRs, point-and-shoots, cell phones...
You just have to imagine this guy getting home.
"Hi honey, how was your day?"
"Well, 2000 zombies went past the hotel."
"Oh be serious!"
"No, look, I even have pictures!"
Because, really, who would believe that?
This guy had both a phone and a regular camera. He's a roller-cop at the Bean. The fact that he carries a dedicated camera makes me think that 2000 zombies may be 'just another day on the job' for him.
This guy even 'Flat Stanley'd the zombies. If you don't know what Flat Stanley is, you can go here to read up on him. The short version is, when you either can't go somewhere yourself, OR you go somewhere alone and can't get pictures of you in front of a landmark, you put a little picture/doll/figurine in the shot that represents you. A friend of mine uses a Captain Jack Harkness (from Torchwood) action figure, other people use a favorite stuffed animal. It's a way of showing "I was here, I saw this thing in person, but I couldn't get myself into the shot." This guy couldn't get a picture of himself with the zombies, but he held the little Amigurumi doll (which, IMHO, looks like Where's Waldo) to the zombie parade as a way of saying, "Look what *I* did in Chicago!"
So we shambled past Broadway in Chicago...
...across the Chicago River. (One thing I noticed about zombies - they're camera hogs. If I stopped for a second to get a shot, odds were good someone would stick their face against my glass.)
Clearly a zombie from years gone by got tired of being labeled and left this on the railing to the bridge over the river.
After making the loop around, well... The Loop, we made our way back to the Bean. It was about four hours later... and there were still people there getting dressed up as zombies. I have no idea what they were going to do or where they were going to go as a zombie, as the walk was over, but... there he was.
ETA:So this young lady with the red hair here is Alexandra. She and I were chatting on Facebook and she explained why they were still doing make up after the march. "If you were wondering why we were still doing make-up, we were just having fun I suppose. I didn't understand why people wanted makeup after the march, but I was having fun so I did it."
The one last person I have to mention is Heather Myers. Heather was going around with a small video camera, interviewing zombies, but not dressed as one. I asked who she was interviewing for and she said that it was for her Masters thesis. She is, no joke, getting her Masters in Zombies from HARVARD. She turned in the proposal to her advisor as a joke and had her 'real' topic of... something about the aculturalization of Native American Trickster Gods... to turn in afterwards. Anyway, the advisor looked at the Zombies one and went, "You are so totally doing this!" So now she travels around and studies the zombie phenomena and its growth in America. How wild is that?
This week I'm going to a bonfire event. Those shots will probably be a little more along the lines of the stuff you're used to seeing from me. But I have to say, I wasn't sure about hanging out with the UNnatural for a day, but it really was a blast. Thanks to all you zombies. I've never met friendlier undead people in my life.
OH! That reminds me... I kept asking people if they knew this song, and I didn't meet one who did. I'm not saying it's brilliant music or anything. But it's "All You Zombies" by the Hooters. It's an old 80's pop tune... that's vaguely about zombies.
So, I posted a quick bit on the Zombie March in Chicago yesterday. I'm hoping to finish on the subject in two posts tonight, but wow... there were a lot of pictures.
NOTE to the regular readers who are used to cute, fluffy squirrels and happy little song birds... These zombie posts contain exactly what you'd think of when you hear "zombie". A lot of stage make-up gray faces and latex flesh wounds and currant-juice fake blood. If this is not what you signed on for, please feel free to look away now. Personally, I found it all to be a lot of "Hey look someone in make up", but some people on the street were legitimately startled by some of the participants. Personally (and really, this is something I'll go into in the next post, not this one) the only thing I found creepy were some of the contact jobs. Even under all the grease paint, latex and Rice Krispies (more on that in the next post too) I still expect people's eyes to look like, you know, normal eyes.
I promise that my next event will be far more family-friendly. :)
Anyway, I mentioned yesterday that about 2000 zombies and 100 photographers showed up for this 'flash mob' style event.
With that many subjects all wanting to be photographed, it was a bit of a challenge to decide who to shoot, where, how and then once I got the pictures back on the computer, thinning them down to a representative sample was a real challenge.
To any zombies who remember being photographed by a short girl in jeans and a gray/black/white flannel who aren't being shown here: my deepest apologies. I've had to reject a lot of really fun pictures just for lack of something to say other than, "Hey look, yet another zombie." If you're reasonably sure that I got some shots of you and you'd like me to email them to you, please feel free to contact me. You can leave a comment here or email kymberleericke at gmail [dot] com.
So here's a trick for next year: Have a bit. Have a theme or a skit or a schtick or something that makes you more than "and here's yet another zombie in jeans and a torn up t-shirt with fake blood all over."
Mad as a Hatter and Twice as Dead
Like this pair. First off I love the gender-switch of the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts. Second of all, the contacts I mentioned earlier? Check out Miss Hatter's eyes closer. Not only does she have creepy contacts, she has eyelashes longer than some dog leashes I've seen!
Black Swan, Red Blood
As if the Black Swan wasn't demented enough in the movie. Now she's demented and dead.
Silence of the [Undead] Lambs
For some, being a zombie was a family affair. There's something charmingly Radar O'Reilly about a little zombie that carries a cute stuffed lamb.
Movie characters were being undead all over the place. Here Ginny Weasely and Dorothy were helping to do make up on a few people who weren't undead enough.
Old School Undead
Okay, so there was something very old-school about her outfit. Very "Little Red Riding Hood" meets Abby Sciuto meets Night of the Living Dead.
A Little Hip Action
And if your costume is not the sort that stands out in 2000 zombies, get a schtick. I mean, really, who can't help but watch a hoola-hooping zombie?
On my honor, I will die...
Okay, I think she takes my "all time favorite zombie" award for the year. And yeah, that's probably not an expression I ever expected to use, but her details are just impeccable. (Is it just me or is Blogspot washing out my photos today?) If you can blow up the shot and see her patches, the top one is a brilliant re-creation of the normal patch a Junior or Senior scout would wear, but it says "Hurl Scouts" instead of "Girl Scouts" and her troop number is 666. And to top it off, the irony of ironies is that she's wearing an ANKH! If you aren't familiar with the ankh, it's an Ancient Egyptian symbol for... life! A zombie wearing a life symbol. I love it.
From A to Z (Adorable to Zombies)
Of course, you don't have to stretch your zombie imagination too hard when you start with such cute little girls. Cute little zombies score points any day. What was absolutely adorable was when I asked to take their picture, the little one with the syringe in her head started to smile and the other one elbowed her and said, "Don't *smile*. We're *zombies*!" But then she couldn't keep her face straight. Also, Zombies in little pink flower sneakers? Sweet!
Starbucks: even animates the undead
Normally I'm a zombie until I've had my coffee. Apparently she's a zombie even with it.
In either case, my brother's still safe.
Also in the schtick department: funny signs. I always wondered what would happen to undead vegetarians.
There were a couple of zombie-brides (and a few real ones - see the last post), but this was the only one who came equipped with attendants. It was a blast staging them in "real wedding" poses with the city behind them. It confused a few tourists as there was, at the same time, a real wedding doing similar posings about fifteen or twenty feet down the railing from us.
Okay, hopefully I can get everything else in the next post. A little about zombifying folks, a little on moving 2000 people through Chicago, a little on photographing 2000 zombies on the move...
I have so very much to say about this, that most of it will have to wait for tomorrow, but I wanted to share this bit, because I found it hysterical.
Today was Chicago's Fourth Annual Zombie March. Again, I'll go into it all tomorrow, but basically it's an excuse for 2000 people to dress up like Zombies and march around Chicago.
The gathering point is the Bean - Cloudgate - in Millennium Park. This also happens to be a very popular spot for wedding photography, but it's not the kind of place you call up and reserve. So, collisions happen.
The first two weddings I saw out there were all very, "OMG zombies... why are there ZOMBIES at my WEDDING?"
The next one... less concerned. :)
As people started to collect, someone put on Michael Jackson's "Thriller", and about a dozen zombies started dancing.
At one point I look up and notice that there's a wedding (wedding? With the bride in teal? If anyone knows of a different celebration this might be, I'd love to hear it, thanks!) gathering around the dancing zombies.
When the song ended and the zombies began to meander off, the guy in the white suit (groom?) taps the zombie with the boom box and asks him to run the song again.
And then the wedding party did "Thriller".
Even the little kid. :)
So while weddings spontaneously breaking out into flash mob-style dances these days is becoming commonplace, I've never heard of a flash mob gathering and having a wedding break out. :)
ETA: It's been suggested that this may be a Quinceanera party. Personally, I've never heard of a Quinceanera that has people coordinating outfits like bridesmaids and groomsmen, but then again, I've never seen a bride in teal before, so... ?
Wow, haven't posted in almost two weeks. Sorry about that. It's not that I haven't been out shooting, I just haven't had time to get a post together.
That and the fact that I'm completely obsessed with ProjectNoah.com. It's a fantastic site to talk to people who do a lot of what I do here.
Anyway, on Memorial Day, May 31, I hiked all three ponds on one of the very first 90 degree (F) we had this year. The weather has been very slow to warm up which has kept the cold-bloodeds in hiding for a long, long time. They're *just* making their way out now, as the migratory birds (the warblers and some of the finches, etc...) make their way up and out of the city.
Sign of Summer
One of my favorite signs of summer. The dragonflies are back! We don't have the clouds of them (okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration) that we had around this time last year, but slowly but surely, a few species are parking themselves somewhere easy to photograph.
Bowing Carolina
I'll need to go back and check my posts from last year, but I think I was identifying all the bright red dragonflies like this as Red Saddlebags, but while checking this a few dozen times before putting it up on Project Noah (I *love* that people there will correct you if you get a spotting wrong, but I'd prefer to get it right myself the first time if I can.) Anyway, it turns out that this is, in fact, a Carolina Saddlebags. You can tell because a Red has these clear patches on their wings right where they attach to the body. This one is red to the abdomen, so it's a Carolina. Another tell is that the last couple segments on the Carolina are dark brown or black. They're the same red as the rest of the tail on the Red Saddlebags.
First Spotting of a Twelve Spotted
Like last year, one of the first dragonflies and easiest to identify is the Twelve-Spotted Skimmer. This guy would perch for about eight seconds, I'd get a few shots and then he'd fly off in about a ten foot radius circle and then come right back to this stick and perch again before starting the process all over. Made it easy to shoot him. I just had to wait a few seconds everytime he left, since I could depend on him to come back. :)
Red Ears with Their Eyes on Me
Another one I've learned better about. Last year I thought all the turtles in the North Pond were Red-Eared Sliders. Turns out a lot of them were Eastern Painted. So when I learned that, I started thinking that maybe I was just getting them all wrong and they were all Painteds. But no. Here are some honest-to-goodness Red-Ears. In this case you have a male (the smaller) and the female (the larger).
A Bee on a Bud
The bees are making their way out too. Here's a honey bee checking out the early goldenrod.
And about the time the bees come out, the wasps come with them. Clearly my "this can puncture me and I should flee" instinct didn't recover over the winter. I'm still trying to figure out which kind of wasp he is. Any ideas?
Okay, so this guy clearly isn't cold-blooded, but I was really chuffed over this sequence of shots I got of him coming in for a landing.
I would have loved for that last shot to have been a little clearer, but he landed pretty far back. It's still a fun series of shots, though. Night Herons are about as exotic as we get out here.
The Carolina Saddlebag and the Red-Eared Sliders (properly identified) are my only new species for this post, but that brings my total up to 35 of my 50 new species.
So I was walking through the Hedge last week when I saw this sign:
Now, I know the Lily Pool well. I was just complaining about having hiked over there from the South Pond last week only to find that it still isn't open. :( But I hadn't heard of this Bill Jarvis place. I think the sign must be new, because I'm pretty sure I would have seen it before, I'm only at the Hedge about once a week. And I'm at the North Pond almost as often.
Anyway, I came home and Googled this place. It's near the golf course on the east side of Lake Shore Drive on the North Side. Or, as the directions I got said, "East of Lake Shore Drive, at the end of Addison Ave. (3400 N.)
Well, I was going to be in that general vicinity yesterday morning so I took all my photography gear with me and planned to stop on my way back. According to Google Maps, I needed to take the 36 bus back down Broadway and then walk the few blocks east to Lake Shore Drive and then cross it, and basically I'd be there.
If you're from Chicago, you see the problem. If you're not from Chicago, imagine crossing your area's busiest eight-lane expressway. Not a highway with cross streets that will cause cars to occasionally come to a stop. An expressway with on- and off-ramps so no one stops on this road ever. (Okay there's a light at Chicago Ave, but that was nowhere near me.)
There are a few underpasses. The east side of the drive is a *highly* developed recreation area in a very upscale section of town. Of course, I hopped off the bus where I had to hike up about a mile north to get to an underpass, cross under and then hike back about a quarter mile to get back to where I actually wanted to be.
Not helping things, I was in jeans and boots and a t-shirt and the temp had shot up from the mid sixties to the mid eighties between the time I left my house and the time I got to this sanctuary.
Now, me being uncomfortable isn't the end of the world. I had water and snacks and I was in the shade a fair bit of the time. Unfortunately I'd left the house without turning on the air conditioning for the ferrets. I'm sure dog and cat people think that's kind of a ridiculous thing to get worried about, but ferrets don't handle heat well at all. Logi (especially) is happy to snorkle and play in the snow all day long. But ferrets tolerate temperatures above 80* F about as well as most people tolerate temps at about 100* F. We CAN survive it, but it's going to be a miserable time. And then, only for short periods. So I was feeling a little pressure to move through this place at a quicker pace than I might otherwise investigate a new shooting location.
That said, the set up for this place is... not great. I didn't have a great desire to linger there.
Unlike the Magic Hedge or the Lily Pond, you can't actually walk through this sanctuary. The entire thing is surrounded by a ten foot high chain-link fence. There's a path around it, but you can't go in. Part of me says, "Well that's great for the birds, really." The rest of me says, "If the point is to increase nature awareness in the city, you might want to let us get as close as we can in the other parks. Because that fence is a huge turn off." It might have been better if it was split rail or something a little less "institutionalized, prison-height" black chain-link. For some reason that fence read much more as "Keep people OUT" rather than "keep nature safe."
There is a platform that lets you see over the fence at one end. Sort of. When I read on the website, I was thinking of the one like they have at Volo Bog. At Volo the platform isn't ridiculously high off the ground from where it was - maybe 8 or 10 steps up. But once you're up there, you can look over a huge lowered section of the bog. You get a great view from that slightly increased height. It's where I took this shot:
The platform at Bill Jarvis is only about four steps up. And yes, it does help you see over the fence and it's a great spot to set up your tripod. The downside is that the birds have completely figured out that they're exposed on that face of the sanctuary and they tend to not hop up to be visible while there are people on the platform.
As you go around, there are a few trees on the outside of the actual sanctuary and a few areas that I think will be wildflower and butterfly gardens in a month, but aren't much of anything right now.
It's a small area that has a parking lot on the north and an archery range (yes, really, Chicago has a public archery range. And there were even people out there shooting arrows at targets when I was out there) on the northeast and a jogging path that butts *right* up against Lake Shore Drive all along the west side. So it's not a phenomenal spot for getting in touch with nature.
These signs every twelve feet or so, certainly didn't help.
All that said, I did see a few species I haven't seen anywhere else in Chicago... or, you know, anywhere else at all.
This is a hairy woodpecker. I've seen the RedHeaded at the North Pond, and I've seen Red-Breasted and Flickers at the Hedge. This guy took me a bit to identify because most woodpeckers in Northern Illinois are black and white with various checks and stripes on their wings.
An Indigo Bunting! A blue bird. I love finding blue in nature. He really didn't want to come out of the leaves. He was singing his little heart out though, so he wasn't too completely dedicated to staying hidden.
And another warbler to add to the collection. This one is called a Magnolia Warbler. I really need to get a lens a little better than the telephoto I have now. Warblers tend to stay *just* out of range of the lens I have now. I ran into a guy out there who was looking for his 30th warbler species for the spring. Last year he saw 32 distinct species. I guess I still have a lot of birds to find.
So, yeah, three new species, but I need to head back to this spot one more time without worrying about me being hot or the ferrets being hot (seriously, I was more worried about them) or being annoyed by the 'great new place' being badly set up before I form a more permanent opinion.
So, the final verdict? 33 of 50 new species, and a location that needs re-evaluation.
So there have been tons and tons of nests visible through the branches this spring, because it's been so cold for so long. Apparently the birds can read a calendar and set up housekeeping because it's May and they should. Trees on the other hand say, "It's freaking cold. My leaves are doing just find inside, thanks."
The leaves are starting to come out now, but still a lot of the nests are pretty easily seen. Unlike last year when the mother robin built her nest about three feet off the ground (and consequently lost it and her four eggs) most of them are like fifteen to twenty feet up. Not something I can go investigating. But a few are in the eight to ten feet up range. Now, I'm not even five feet tall, but I have a tripod.
I've been putting on the kit lens, pulling the focus back as far as I can, setting the camera on auto and then putting it on the tripod. I set the timer for ten seconds, the continuous shooting mode for 5 (one shot every second for five seconds), collapse the tripod legs together and hold it up over my head like a boom mic and *hope*. A lot.
This shot was a little easier than most to get. I stood back from the tree and didn't have to worry about angling down. I wanted the mother crow in the nest.
I waited her out and she finally left (okay, a few loud people behind me scared her off, I think - I watched her for like half an hour and she didn't mind, but then these teenage girls came through...) Anyway, I did the camera-on-a-stick thing and got this.
Not wonderfully in focus and I wish those leaves in the bottom left corner weren't there, but you can see that mama is waiting for something to happen. :)
I found this nest a little bit later. This was as good a shot as I could manage, but I haven't seen a bird in or very near it in the past two weeks I've been watching it. It may be abandoned, or maybe I just have lousy timing for catching something in it. I *think* it's a robin's nest. (If someone else out there knows better, please let me know!) The mud around it makes me think of this shot...
Another camera-on-a-stick moment. I never saw the mother in the nest, but there are roughly a billion robins in the Hedge, so I'm pretty sure she's around somewhere. I'll be keeping an eye on this nest. :)
So about half-way across the park, a really heavy fog started rolling in off the lake.
Now, when you're actively trying to shoot things far away from you, it's not fun when the fog makes everything, well, foggy. But if you switch your focus to getting mood shots, some fun stuff can happen.
This looks better bigger. In the midground there's a flock of seagulls. This is the volleyball court on Montrose Beach, which is just behind the Hedge. You can't even see the lake.
It looks like I took this shot in October. Like I was saying, the leaves aren't making much of an appearance yet. For that matter the wildflowers aren't making an appearance at all.
Okay, up next, a new bird-watching spot in Chicago. It's half-way between the Magic Hedge and the North Pond. If I ever got seriously energized, I could start at the South Pond, hit the Lily Pond, go up to the North Pond, hit this new spot and then go up to the Hedge. And freakishly, each of those spots has at least one bird I haven't seen at any other place. And we're talking about a roughly four-mile stretch of the lake front. Geographically speaking, that's not a huge area to cover!
It finally got above 70 again yesterday so I headed out to the Hedge. Migration season is starting to wane, but apparently there's still a few new species out there to find.
The really cool one was the Baltimore Oriole that followed me throughout the day. Either that or there were a half-dozen of these guys out there.
I really, really wish this had come in more in focus. Well, focused on the bird, not the tree bit in front of him.
Here he is, making sure I was still following him, I think. :)
Of *course* the best shot I get is from underneath him. This is how my luck goes.
And there was a female Black Duck hanging out in front of the Hedge. Most of the large wading birds tend to avoid the Hedge, since there's no large body of water within it and Lake Michigan is just beyond it. She was apparently curious about where all the people were going.
Cardinals are a mainstay of the Hedge. You can see them (and hear them) all year long. I like this shot because his crest is up; that's a little more uncommon.
Most of the time, this is what you see of the chipmunks in this park. Now you see them, now you don't.
But I've discovered this one little guy who lives in a fallen tree. He's in a particularly interesting area of the Hedge where I often see woodpeckers and other cool birds. Anyway, he bolts into his warren in there whenever he hears someone coming, but I've learned that if I stand still for a few minutes, he'll come creeping back out to see if the coast is clear. When he sees me standing there, far enough away to not cause him to bolt back in, he freezes while he decides what I'm up to. Gives me a great chance to get good pictures of him. :)
Tomorrow I'll post about the fog and bird nests. You have to get creative when photographing both! In the mean time, the oriole and the chipmunk go on the new species list. So that's 30 total so far. 60% a little more than two weeks in. Not too bad!
