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We have yet to make it to the Big Island of Hawaii to see the lava flows in the volcano, but when we were walking around Buckingham Fountain in Downtown Chicago this summer, I watched as the sprays of water changed colors with the lights and thought this one had a familiar glow to it.

In the typical short cycle of winter weather that we’re used to here in Chicago early in the season, the decent dumping of snow we received last week is just about gone thanks to slightly warmer temps and rain.

However, this was the scene outside of my office window earlier in the week. I’d say there were about a dozen Canadian geese outside trying to pick at whatever grass was still accessible while the blowing snow was still coming down steadily. I snapped this with my SX110 since our office frowns on setting up tripods with DSLRs and telephoto lenses on them next to the windows.

Any Relation?

I’ve seen these birds year after year but never really thought about grabbing a shot of one of them. That is, of course, when there’s a whole group of them crossing the street and stopping traffic.

Anyway, it was because we saw their somewhat-related cousins, the Nene bird, last September at the Maui Photo Festival. Here’s another shot of one of the distinct relatives, you can sort of see the resemblance, no?

I find it intriguing that these birds are found about 2,500 miles apart from each other, and how the Nene bird from Hawaii is considered such a rare bird in the wild (less than 1,000 as of 2004 per Wikipedia).

Leave it to me to find reminders of Maui is the oddest places during cold, Chicago winters.

In addition to the fireworks last week at the Taste of Chicago, I decided to have a little fun and setup this time lapse shot at Buckingham Fountain. Good thing I was using my remote shutter so people notice I was snapping these shots every second, otherwise they would have been stopping and waiting for me to take the photo.

What a beautiful day it was, if only a little late in the afternoon to wash out some of the colors. Still fun to watch, though.

Enjoy.

I hope everyone had a happy 4th of July this past weekend. After an impromptu excursion into downtown Chicago two weeks ago, we decided it would be fun to go checkout the Taste of Chicago fireworks in Grant Park this year. Of course, I had all my camera gear in tow, and have posted the results in a new photoset on Flickr: Taste of Chicago Fireworks ‘09

This was my first serious attempt shooting a fireworks display, and I was generally happy with the results. I had a pretty decent setup with my travel tripod only about a foot off the ground, my angle view finder for the initial focusing, and my remote shutter release for the no touch, no camera shake firing.

Since the majority of the photos were taken with the same focal length and composition (the trees at the bottom of the frame) the Flickr slideshow view of these photos has a pretty nice effect. All in all, I think it was a great evening, and I look forward to taking in the show again next year, and any other fireworks displays I might find during the remainder of the summer.

More Photos

The next photo I wanted to share from our little trip downtown last weekend. This is one of the lion statues out in front of the Art Institute of Chicago.