cetan's weblog a man, no plan, a blog, golbanalponnama.

5 Places – A response to strangedavid

somebodystrange asked (oh so long ago): "A young photographer is looking for suggestions of five places to go in Chicagoland to take photos. Where do you send him and why?"

I've really struggled with this question, probably due to over-thinking it.

Photography covers such a broad spectrum...because it covers everything. Pretty tourist scenes to hard-core photojournalism to abstractions. So, my brain started trying to pick a category and from that category,choose 5 locations.

And then I thought perhaps I should tie my answers to my own photography project. Should I pick 5 areas that I've visited and enjoyed? But that is such a specific and narrow focus (a 2 mile radius), would it not be too limiting?

So here's what I've come up with. Chicago is the city of neighborhoods. It's a city built on individual communities all tied together. I want to visit these communities; I want to learn about who lives there, who works there, and what there is to photograph. With that in mind, I would instruct the young photographer thus:

From downtown Chicago, pick an El train line. Ride it for however long you want and then exit. Walk back to the station you started from. Repeat 4 more times choosing a different line each time. What you see depends on how far you want to walk, but what you will gather is a detailed view of what Chicago really /is/. An alternate method to this plan would be to exit the El and walk the neighborhood around that stop for the time it would take to walk back to your point origin.

Oh and one addendum: make sure to travel up and down the lakeshore by way of the bike path. The views are nice.

Batman: The Dark Knight

"Batman: The Dark Knight" started filming in Chicago earlier this year, but full production began in June. As with "Batman Begins" the empty lot next to my building is one of staging areas for crew and equipment. The roof of a parking deck near work is also being used for a couple of sets. One area is the roof of the Gotham City Police department, where yesterday the Bat Signal was sitting. The rest seems to be set up for some sort of car crash/chase activity.

There's not much to see right now, and admittedly the only window I have for most photos is during lunch but nevertheless what photos I do grab will be posted to my flickr account.

click here for the Batman: The Dark Knight set.

Farmers Market 2007

My post from 2005 still stands. There's so much goodness at the Thursday Farmers Market in Daley Plaza.

Today I came home with: asparagus, sweet cherries, snap peas, orange blossom honey, and a slice of cherry pie.

What I wanted to buy but didn't: some of those specialty cheeses, the garlic chives, the dried apricots, and a box of mushrooms.

The end of The Sopranos

I watched the final episode of The Sopranos yesterday. Having had the second to last episode spoiled, I was determined to not let myself have the last episode spoiled as well.

And in that vein, if you've not yet seen the last episode, look away.

Really. Look away.

There's a lot of people up in arms over the ending. I don't think there is a reasonable scenario that could have been filmed that wouldn't cause some group to be all upset. People have too much time on their hands and have stupid priorities.

But anyway. The final episode. The hard cut to black.

I loved it. I still love it. After thinking about it for a while, and thinking about how much tension I felt at the end, I can only conclude that this was the best choice for an ending. I was on the edge of my seat during the diner scene, completely wrapped up in it and the hard cut was like a sudden breath. By shocking the viewer with...well...nothing, I think David Chase was explaining why a show that was only supposed to be around for a season or two had instead grabbed peoples attention for six.

The character of Tony Soprano was larger than life in many ways. It is very fitting that we do not learn what happens. Was there a hit? Was the FBI there ready to humiliate him in public? Did everyone simply live happily ever after? Was the whole episode a dream? (For the record I don't believe for a second it was all a dream, but that's another discussion).

I'm not a fan boy, I simply enjoyed watching it. And that includes the end.

Heroes

Last week I started watching Heroes during my commute (I'm up to episode 12). I'm interested and the story seems compelling, but I'm a bit put off by the cribbing from Lost. Now, I gave up on Lost most of the way through Season 2, so I'm basing my character development on only those episodes I've seen. Though I've not done any Google searching on this topic, I'm sure this is one of those cases where everyone else has figured this out already...

Anyway here's what I've come up with so far:

Lost

• A doctor that is always trying to save everyone and who's father did some bad things then died.
• A slightly unshaven guy from Iraq who's a whiz with electronics and questions people
• Husband and wife from Korea, only one of whom speaks English
• A mysterious and beautiful woman with an apparently violent past
• A young child who has special abilities
• A musician who's addicted to heroin
• A mostly silent and rather large black man from Africa.
• A shadow organization that seems to be controlling a lot of what is happening

Heroes

• A nurse that believes he can save everyone and who's father did some bad things then died.
• A sometimes unshaven guy from India who's a whiz with genetics and questions people
• Two male friends from Japan only one of whom really speaks any English.
• A beautiful woman around whom terribly violent things are happening
• A young child who has special abilities
• A painter who's addicted to heroin
• A mostly silent and rather large black man from Haiti
• A shadow organization that seems to be attempting to control a lot of what is happening.

I've probably missed some similarities (is there a connection between the cops on either show?). Heroes moves at about the same pace as Lost but at least seems to be resolving threads, whereas Lost (again, as of season 2) suffered from its well documented case of open-thread-itus.

Thank you, Chicago Bears

The Chicago Bears made it farther this season than any of the 21 seasons prior and, quite frankly, it was a very entertaining.

What more can be said? The cold has sapped my meager brain of coherent sentences this morning.

So, congratulations to the Colts for their win and I hope to see both teams in the same spot next year

Bears Win!

What more can be said?

Photo by Reuters.

So busy

cetan.org ran out of photos to show 2 days ago, and I just was able to upload a couple more. I'm closing in on 3 months behind on uploading photos to Nathan's photo album. My long-standing web-site design project is so dead it's probably turning into oil by now. Projects at home are piling up and up and up (what will it be like when yard work kicks back in this spring?).

And I have apparently turned this blog into "Rob complains about stuff." It was probably better when it was "Rob talks about obscure nerdy photography things." So, I'll combine the two:

A service advisory update from Canon included my A80 is their list of cameras that may warrant a free repair due to a faulty Sony CCD sensor inside. The behavior they describe is exactly the behavior that our camera has been exhibiting. (see: "Uh Oh")

This, of course, is the best time for the camera to function perfectly and without fault in any condition. Which is exactly what it has decided to do.

So, I'm holding a UPS shipping label (Canon's footing the bill both ways) and an apparently working camera (that has some serious body damage) wondering if its even worth being without a point and shoot over the holidays. In all likelihood the repair people will point to the body damage as the reason for the failure and reject the claim. (That is, unless they too want to screw Sony to the wall as they're the ones paying for all these faulty sensors, in which case go go Canon!)

If the claim is accepted, then I have a good chance of being offered a replacement camera in place of fixing the A80. Owners of the A70 were (I believe) being offered the A530 which isn't a bad trade for them. I don't see Canon offering more, but an A540 would be a nice alternative.