I’ve always liked carnivorous plants. On our deck are growing a few post of pitcher plants, sundew and venus flytrap. This insect triggered one of the traps and was almost able to escape. But the plant had closed on its abdomen. After that, the bug never had a chance.
While I was in Chicago this past spring I noticed a few things that had changed since the last time I was there. The most impressive new feature I saw was the sculpture Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor. Located in the middle of Millennium Park, the huge mirrored form reflects the city all around it like a huge fish-eye lens. It has an infinite quality to it and appears to have a completely different shape depending on from which angle it is viewed. Not only does it capture a distorted image of the city, but it also captures the images of the people looking at it.
About a week ago I ended a trip to Salt Lake City. I was there for a few days doing some commercial work. When I had a moment, I made it a point to get out and see some of the local scenery.
The Great Salt Lake has an average size of 1700 square miles but is only 30 feet deep. There are no fish but lots of brine shrimp as I witnessed. The photo above was taken about 20 miles west of Salt Lake City and was shot digitally in infrared.
After years of wanting one, I finally got a digital infrared camera. Ever since the late 1980’s, I have been a fan of Kodak’s High Speed Infrared film. Sadly, this, like so many other great specialty films, is no longer produced. For a while I’ve had this original Canon Digital Rebel sitting on a shelf. Finally this spring I decided to reintroduce infrared into my photographic vocabulary. The Rebel was sent off and was converted—sensors in digital cameras are just as sensitive to infrared light as they are to visible light—it’s a filter built into the camera that keeps the infrared part of the spectrum from showing up in your photos. Now there are several services around the country that will remove the IR filter and replace it with a filter that blocks the visible light and allows only the IR light to pass through.
The images don’t look quite like Kodak’s great film, but the tonalities are very similar, and with a few post-production tweaks you can get a picture with great atmosphere. How I’m going to use this newly modified camera, I have not yet decided.
Well, it’s not really that new now. The Sultan Hookah Lounge opened a couple of months ago. I wrote a short piece about it and took some photos for the Sentinel, which is still online for the moment, but maybe going dark soon—hopefully to be replaced by a larger news venture.
The smokers I spoke to said they love the hookah. It seems that the lounge is pretty busy on weekend evenings. Personally, I find it hard to breath there. Though the shop might seem controversial (they also sell a lot of smoking paraphernalia) I think at this point, with so many vacant storefronts in the neighborhood, people are happy to see anyone make a go of a new business.