Jun/090
Evening Photo Walk: Downtown Indy’s Westside
It has been a while since I shot downtown. I recently purchased an excellent wide angle zoom lens, and I wanted to give it a workout. Downtown seemed like the perfect subject, so off I went. Given the evening light, I decided on the west side, shooting mostly east. Turns out, there were three major events going on the west side. Despite this, my super secret street parking location was still available, and, no, I’m not going to share.
The 10-22mm was a lot of fun, and I’m pretty happy with the results. The light was kind of harsh, so many shots would have benefited from a UV or other polarizing filter. Here’s one of my favorites; the rest are on the photos page.
Sep/080
Morning Photo Walk: Lockerbie
I got up early and a did did another morning photography walk this today. I wasn’t as inspired as I was with the last one. Then I had a purpose, I knew exactly what I wanted to do: capture the new stadium. This time, I didn’t really have a purpose. I just want to capture some more downtown architecture. I ended up in Lockerbie and wandered over to Mass. Ave. It is one of the older areas of the city that has still retained its original feel. Here’s one of my favorites; the rest, as always are on the photos page.
Aug/080
Morning Photography Walk: Lucas Oil Stadium
I got up early this fine Saturday morning for the sole purpose of getting out to take some pictures. I decided my destination was the recently finished Lucas Oil Stadium. I’m not particularly a football fan, but, hey, I’ll be paying a half a point every time I eat out for the next thirty years to pay for the thing. So, I might as well get some enjoyment out of it.
It’s a beautiful building…kind of a modernized twist on a turn of the century manufacturing center. The choice to skew it on the log was brilliant. It keeps it from looking too much like a factory and puts the city skyline in all of its site lines. That is difficult to capture, however, because of the nature of the surrounding area. The near south side has all of its utilities above ground, making it hard to find a vantage point to capture the scale of the thing, its relationship to the skyline, or even the roof line, that isn’t obstruct by a utility line.
Fortunately, the land between the RCA Dome and the new stadium is being developed and has been cleared. This allowed for some nice shots juxtaposing the new against the old.
I made eighty-eight shots is just under an hour. The wonders of digital. Fortunately, Aperture makes narrowing that down to my twenty or so favorites a fairly quick process. See the photos page for all the rest.
Aug/080
Using shutter speed to change the look of moving water
I visited the Indianapolis downtown canal district a couple of weeks ago to take some pictures. There is a waterfall at one end of the canal where an old set of locks used to be. I used the opportunity to experiment with the looks you can create with flowing water using shutter speed.
If your shutter speed is really fast, say 1/250 of a second or less, you will see every stray drop of water caught in a moment of time. I like to call this beaded water. Here is an example:
On the other end of the spectrum, using a slower shutter speed, say 1/30 of a second or more, will result is a smooth image where the flowing water blurs together. I like to call this curtain water. The example:
For the rest of the canal pictures, visit the photos page.
May/080
Growth is easy, sustaining it is hard
Northern Light Productions has a pair of excellent documentaries on urban sprawl. The first covers Phoenix, and the second Cleveland. One is new, the other is old, and both experiencing similar problems. As sprawl expands in concentric rings around the city, the less desirable inner rings begin to decline. Additionally, the vast geographic area that the metropolitan area begins to cover results in a staggering growth in the cost of maintaining the infrastructure. They are excellent films. Occasionally replayed on the on the local PBS affiliate’s HD channel, they are highly recommended if you get a chance to see them. You can catch a preview here.
The Cleveland film, especially, hit home with me. Because, in many ways, Indy has seen a similar pattern. As the first ring of suburbs began to be supplanted by the second, first tier neighborhoods decline and commercial and retail flee to where the money is. The Eastgate and Glendale malls, which originally were a source of decline for downtown retail, are now either a shell of their former selves or closed completely. Now, as the third tier of suburbs are the growth centers, you see Washington square, which supplanted Eastgate, in decline. Meanwhile, the cost of upkeep on what is fast becoming 8 counties worth of rather sparsely populated, but urban infrastructure, has the citizens in near revolt over property taxes.
Until we begin to plan and manage our growth in a smarter direction, we will continue to reap what we sow.