Zombie March Chicago 2012 - Post 5- The Signs of The Apocolypse (beta) - June 16, 2012

First... the reminder: 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.

 So there were just a few more signs I wanted to share.

 So I heard this thing long before I saw it.  I don't think mufflers were required in... I don't know, 1922 or whatever.

Anyway, I see this sign on an old car.  I honestly thought it was a coincidence since the walk was more than three-quarters done, so I didn't think it had anything to do with us.

 Then I saw the side.  I swear I've seen this car before.  I can't remember where - maybe just toodling around Chicago somewhere - bit it looked really familiar.  So I'm staring and staring, trying to remember where I've seen it when I realize... this thing has no driver!

Then the car pulled up a little more and I could see the guy inside.  And his friend.  I guess they were with us after all. :)

 And then there was this...

Not exactly what you'd expect from a brain-munching zombie. :)

Okay, a few more pics of just random bits and pieces are up next!

Zombie March Chicago 2012 - Post 4 - The Signs of The Apocolypse (alpha) - June 16, 2012

So... I got a bit of interesting feedback on my second Zombie March post for this year.  I made the comment that I wasn't sure if it wasn't 'too soon' for Zombie Amy Winehouse, given that she died less than a year ago.  Someone kindly pointed out that Zombie AW had actually originated back in 2007, long before she actually died.  Which just got me to thinking... I was a little ponderous about the AW zombie, because it seemed to me, that on some level, it was making a statement about a real person who was actually dead.

And yet I had no second thoughts about Obama-zombie.  I guess because unlike Amy Winehouse, he doesn't show self-destructive tendencies that would result in a real death at a young age.  I think.  I'm not sure.  I'm suddenly very introspective about how the kind of zombie you dress as says something about a person.

The same person said they found this sign more disturbing than the Amy Winehouse zombie because it was much more recent.

Now, to be fair, it was a good half-an-hour after I first saw this sign that the joke registered for me.

I make bath salts.  You know, scented epsom salts or sea salt that you toss into your actual bathtub.

I have never been a part of, or even had a high interest in, the illegal drug culture.

So it took me a while to remember that there is a mind/mood-altering substance out there called 'bath salts' that have nothing to do with actually cleaning your skin.  And that the use of them has caused some 'real zombie attacks' in the past couple months.  Apparently in a few cases, people who have gotten high on the stuff have killed others and then literally eaten a part of that person.

Pretty gross, right?

So now I *get* the joke, but I think because I was only peripherally aware of these cases as 15-second news bits, they don't have a lasting impact on me.  Maybe people with a lot more interest in zombie legend and cosplay have a greater interest and identification with these stories.  Because once I got the joke I was like, "Oh!  I get it.  Yeah, that makes sense now.  Next!"

So... it's interesting.  I mean, zombies are supposed to be, on some level, disturbing.  But to actually contemplate why some zombies are more disturbing or 'problematic' for some people is just *not* something I ever saw myself putting a lot of brain power into.  And yet...

Anyway!  There were signs!  Zombies with signs.  I always find the signs people carry at any parade/march/protest interesting.  I took many hundreds of pictures of signs at the John Stewert/Stephen Colbert rally in Washington D.C. a few years ago.

There were so many signs that I didn't even attempt to blog them all.  I made a music video out of a handful of my favorites, though.  I could have sworn I linked that here, but I can't find it if I did.  So just in case... here it is again.

Anyway, some of the zombies had signs!

This one was particularly noticable because there was very little lurching this year.  Apparently lurching takes more energy than walking and slows down the process.  Since it was about 93 degrees (F) during the march, no one was up for either wasting energy or going slower.

I like this one because of the hand silhouetted behind it.  It looks like someone's trying to claw through the sign to get away from the monsters.

Apparently "Zombie Rights" are a hot-button issue in the undead community right now.

And, of course, there has to be the Undead of the Occupy Movement represented.

I just hope she isn't implying that 99% of Chicago is zombies. :)









Okay, tomorrow will be one more quick post on signs. :)

Zombie March Chicago 2012 - Post 3, The Zombie is in the Details - June 16, 2012

I missed more shots on this topic than I got, but one of the things I adore about the Zombie March is some people's attention to the details.

 So it's a Zombie in a hat... cute, right?  Then you read his shirt.  And crack up.  Well, at least I did.  Dude, you just got turned into a zombie... not so lucky, I'd say.  But no one asked me, right? :)

 A lot of people have plain t-shirts that they don't mind tearing and bloodying up so I didn't pay a lot of attention to the t-shirts until I happened to be walking behind this girl.  This as a zombie shirt is an awesome piece of cognitive dissonance.

Photo fail in a big way. :(

If you can't piece together what her shirt says under her hair, it's "LA [something] Work Release".  But the awesome detail is in her left hand.  She's got the hand of the person she was handcuffed to before she 'broke away from the chain gang'.







There were lots of awesome make up effects - I showed you Zipper Face in the first post and Snow White's eyes and Wraith Girl's eyes in the second and first post respectively, but sometimes it's just a little thing that you might not ever see unless you get behind the right Zombie.

Zombie March Chicago 2012 - Post 2, Zomb-ody You Might Recognize - June 16, 2012

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.

One of the big schticks for Zombie March is to be a famous, infamous or at least recognizable zombie.  These were the ones that I could recognize.

 I posted this one the other night.  This is Amy Winehouse and her (apparent) husband, someone named Blake.

There was a tiny part of me that asked 'is it a bit too early for the dead Amy Winehouse bits', but I'm not sure what the etiquette is when deciding who's Zombie Fair Game.

 Then there was Zomb-ama.  This guy liked working the crowd.  And before you ask, I'm not 100% sure what the red thing at the split in his pants is supposed to be.

 The Scoobie-Doo Crew finally lost their battle with the guy in the mask!  Poor Scoobie *really* got the raw end of the deal.

This was pretty funny.  I mean, to go to the trouble to get coordinated but not matching t-shirts and the make the box and then bloody it.  I love that it's finger-smears across the 'face' and then there's a heart of blood on the zombie on the left.

 Then there was the Disney Zombie Crew.  Snow White, Pocahontas (I think) Rapunzel, Tinkerbell with Peter Pan behind her, Belle, Cinderella, the Prince from Little Mermaid and Ariel herself.

This crew did some nice details in the make up.  Like look how "Ariel" used make up to really accent her ribs and make her look all emaciated and sunken.

I isolated a few of them to make the details easier to see.  Snow White didn't carry an apple - she had a bloody brain.  And also contacts.  The contacts are still the one thing that will totally throw me when I don't expect to see weird eyes.

And while these aren't people whose names you would know, I'm sure we're all familiar with the ubiquitous Wal-Mart Greeter.


Well if you look closely (or click on to blow up) the little yellow tags under their names, you'll see that these are "Wal-Mart People Grrrrr-eaters."


Very, very clever!


Speaking of details, tomorrow I'll put up the post where the little things in a costume or make-up make all the difference.

Someone Needs to Move the Sun - about your subject being backlit

Okay, I'm interrupting the fun shots of zombies to illustrate a photography point.

You may have heard about a subject being 'backlit' and how bad it is without knowing what it is.  Basically it means that the only source of light in the shot is behind whatever it is you're taking a picture of.

Most of the time when I'm shooting, I'm stuck with whatever it is being where it wants to be and it not caring much if that means I'm shooting directly into the sun.  Butterflies won't move to the flowers on the other side of the path for you just because it would mean keeping the sun behind you.  Birds won't come down out of the tree so that you don't have to aim up into the bright summer sky.

People, on the other hand, will typically be gracious enough to let you stage the shot better.

To wit, these two crossdressing zombies...

The first shot I got of them:

 

Let me show you the set up for this shot.  (And at the same time show you why I'm a photographer, not a sketch artist! :)

 Okay, the big gray blob on the left is The Bean.  I was standing almost under it, the Zombies were facing it, the sun was right behind them.

Look where the rays of the sun hit.  They hit me, they hit The Bean and they hit the BACK of the Zombies' heads.  This makes the whole shot turn dark because the subject of the photo is actually blocking the light from getting to the lens.

So I asked the zombies to move.  We basically switched places - the Zombies in front of The Bean, and me with my back to the light source (sun).  Now I have this configuration:

Look where the light is now.  Hitting the Zombie on the face and in the scope of my lens.

Which gives me this shot:

Pretty amazing difference, isn't it?

So, the short version is, don't shoot with the brightest spot of light BEHIND the subject when you can avoid it.  Don't stand people indoors in front of windows.  Or if you do, shoot from the side if you can.

But you don't always have a choice about where your subject is and where the light source is.  In those cases you have a few options.

1.) Try a fill flash.  Even most point and shoots give you the option of forcing the camera to use the flash even when the internal sensor says the room is bright enough.  This will throw light onto the front of your subject to fight the shadows.

2.) Some cameras have a setting called "Spot Metering" and/or "Partial Metering".  In these settings you line up a particular focus point with the subject you're shooting and the camera will read that item as the part of the frame to try to keep the light as true to the real conditions as possible.  This often has the consequence of overexposing and washing out the background.  The camera basically says, "We need to keep *this* part as bright as we can, but everything has to be relative, so we'll brighten the heck out of the bright area back there."  I occasionally do this on purpose when I'm shooting products for my Etsy, because I *want* the background to be bright white and washed out while my product is the right colors.

Partial metering weighs a lot more of the frame than spot metering.  Partial metering is typically what's used in backlit portraits where you want the whole face to be accounted for.  Spot metering works well when you really want one small area to be well-defined.

So that's my quick and dirty lesson on backlighting and why it's typically bad.  I mean, sure, some people do it for effect.  A creepy silhouette or mood piece can benefit from backlighting.  But most of us want the light on our subject.


Speaking of my Etsy... looking for some fun soap?  Recycled crayons?  Lotion bars?  Some of my photos?

Zombie March Chicago 2012 - Post 1 - June 16, 2012

I'm interrupting our cute little swallows and pretty butterflies and whatnot to bring you Zombie March 2012!

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.


Last year I posted on Zombie March 2011 and how much fun it was, so I went back this year.


One major thing I noticed right off the bat was that we had to be a good 20 degrees hotter today.  Blergh.  We took a different route and had a fair number fewer zombies.  Not that there weren't A LOT of Zombies, but not as many as last year.  I suspect the heat kept some people home.  Some of the costumes and make-up jobs are pretty intense.


Anyway... I still had fun.  Here's a few random shots to start the posting off with.  Just some of the ones I liked best. :)

 The contacts were out in force again.  I played some with isolating parts of the make-up jobs.  This one is probably one of my favorites.

 And of course, the thing about portraits of people, versus what I usually shoot, is that I can say, "Hey over here where the light is better, okay now turn, like that, move here..."  Seriously, I'm so used to shooting wild animals that I almost forget that I can have people move to where the shot will work the best.

Zipper 'embedded' in the skin was the hot new make-up trend this year.  This was one of two really awesome examples I saw of this.  Unfortunately I couldn't get a shot of the other one.

 As usual, there were a fair number of people and characters you might have known when they were alive.  I recognized Amy Winehouse right away, but someone had to explain to me who Blake on the left was. :)

This was a total accidental shot.  She's coming up the stairs as we went down Michigan and I either caught her blinking or looking down as she came up.  But there's something about her colors and make up job that combine with that expression and... you get the most serene zombie ever!

And of course, there are always the cute-kid zombies.  I should have asked if she was celebrating how many years she'd been alive or how many she'd been undead. ;)




























Okay, more tomorrow.  If you are in any of these shots and you'd like them removed, just let me know.  Or if you'd simply like to put your name with the shot, you can let me know that too.  I can be emailed at kymberleericke [at] gmail dot com. :)

Volo Bog - May 27, 2012 - Birds Post #1

So I've been doing a crazy amount of shooting.  And working a full time 'day job'.  Which means that I have a massive backlog of pictures to edit and post.  So I'm going to try to make shorter, more frequent posts to get caught up.

Memorial Day weekend I shot more than 2000 pictures.  Of course, half of them were utter garbage, but that's still a lot of pictures to sort and organize and edit and.. whatever!

That Saturday I went to all three Lincoln Park ponds.  It was about nine hours of shooting.  It wanted to rain on me just a little in the morning, but it cleared up about 8:30 and I was good.

On Sunday I drove out to Volo Bog since I hadn't been there in ages.  We'd been warned all weekend that it would be warm - hot, really - on Sunday, so I planned accordingly.  I had a liter of Gatoraide, a liter of water, pickles, sandwiches, sunscreen, the whole nine yards.

I still don't think that prepared me for a 5 mile hike in 100 degree (F) weather.  I made both loops that I wanted to, but I didn't spend nearly the time I wanted to chasing butterflies and things like that.  It was just too hot.  In fact there were times when I'd just find a place where a tree made a little shade and plop down on the grassy path and rest and hydrate.

The kinds of flowers I was used to seeing there weren't out yet.  I guess most of them are late summer/early fall bloomers.  There was no mammal activity, which was disappointing.  There were a bunch of butterflies and dragonflies, but it was so warm that they were so energized and never sat still long enough to get a good shot of many of them.

That said, it was still a good hike and I did get quite a few good shots.

Tree Swallow(42 - 2012)

 This was one of my favorites from the whole day.  This is a Tree Swallow.  Clearly he wasn't too concerned with me getting reasonably close.  He was just singing his little heart out up there on his nesting box.

This is him form further back.  He kind of looks menacing from here, but clearly he really wasn't. :)

Eastern Kingbird (043 - 2012)

 This is one of the first sites that greeted me when I got there.  This is an Eastern Kingbird.  He's most easily recognized from the back by the white band on his tail.  Apparently, according to one of the posters in the Visitor's Center, these are very common birds in Illinois.  I'm pretty certain I've never seen one before.

 He was nice enough to turn and show me his head after a minute.

 And then he showed me the other side too!

So those were two of the most major spottings for the trip.  There were other birds that were more significant that I'll get to soon, but those shots, unfortunately didn't come out as well.

Total Identified Species Sited for the Year: 43
Total Unidentified Species Sited for the Year: 1
Total New Species: 25

Tree Swallow*
Eastern Kingbird*