Chicago Done Naturally (Post 5 of 10) - Green City and Other Farmers' Markets

Green City Market 

(and other Chicago Farmers’ Markets) 

Chicago has literally dozens of neighborhood farmers' markets.  Check the link above if you want to see if there's one near you.  I want to check out the downtown ones more thoroughly this summer, but in my experience, the neighborhood ones can be very, very small - like a dozen stalls, and only half of those actually having fruits and vegetables.  So I'm concentrating on the Mother of All Chicago's Farmers' Markets - the Green City Market.

The GCM is across the street from the “Farm in the Zoo” exhibit at Lincoln Park Zoo. It’s outside from May through October (there’s an inside market in the winter, but it’s not quite as good shooting) on Wednesday and Saturday mornings. The GCM and LPZ can make for a really long, but really great day of shooting. Bring a fully-charged battery and lots of memory.  Throw in the Lincoln Park Conservatory and you'll have more pictures than you'll possibly know what to do with in one day.

This is Chicago’s biggest and most well-known Farmers’ Market. Did you watch the Chicago season of Top Chef? Remember the one where the chefs had to make their quick-fire only from things found at the Farmers’ Market? That was this market. There’s a wide variety of foods – fruits, vegetables, meats, cheeses and breads – as well as flowers, that change throughout the season. I always ask the stand-operators if I can shoot their stuff, and they’ve always enthusiastically approved, often staging things for me (and showing me things like their Eggplant version of Mr. Potato Head).

 Keep an eye out for the quirky. Last year I got this really fun shot of a crate of green beans with a little chalkboard sign that said “Magic Beans - $1.00 a handful”.

I seem to have lost my shot of Mrs. Eggplant Head.  I'll have to see if they make a new one for this year.

To hit:
Okay, this has nothing to do with photography, but the crepe stand is awesome. The fillings change with the season and everything I’ve tried has been amazing. Also, there’s a stand making hot donut holes on the south edge of the market – to die for. (At least they were on the south edge in 2009. I’m not sure if they’ll be in the same spot this year.) [ETA: They are. ;)]

To miss:
The flowers can make for great shooting, but they do attract Very Large bees. Which can also make for great shooting, but I know a kid who got a bad sting, so watch out. Also, if it’s been raining, wear rainboots or other shoes that handle mud well. They throw down hay after a rain, but the grounds stay pretty soggy.

So here we are... a photography blog...

So I'm looking at 213 gigs of photos taken in the last year or so and wondering what to post as my first few 'introductory' shots...

This is hard.

So for now I'm going to grab the first five things I see in my archives that I like.

First of all, why everyone who has a DSLR should have a macro telephoto lens.

[Bee on a Bleeding Heart]






Another good reason. I'll post an article I did for something else in a few days about great places to go shooting in Chicago. This happens to be at the South Pond in Lincoln Park.

[Striped Dragonfly on a Blade of Grass]




This is a Black Crowned Night Heron. I was shocked to find out that this bird lives in Chicago. On one walk I saw seven of them in the North Pond. The first one I ever saw was in a swamp in Florida - they grow their herons a little bigger down south. But still, this is a pretty impressive bird to find just steps from Lake Shore Drive.





I did quite a bit of editing on this one, but I do love how it came out. I fixed the horizon, made it black and white and turned up the brightness just a bit. This is a build up of ice on the wooden pylons in Lake Michigan in late February. They remind me of Eagle wings.
[Ice Wings]

I love quirky! This was shot at the Green City Market last fall.

[Magic Beans]







So that's post one. Feel free to comment or ask questions. Let's get some discussion going!