Going Home Again

On the road again

It isn’t true that you can’t go home again.

In the forty-one years since we moved to Tennessee, we have been back to Ann Arbor an average of three times per year, which makes one hundred and twenty-three times we have gone home. We have driven through the night, through fog, through storms, and Michigan being where it is, through snow. Lots of it. We’ve taken our children as babies and teenagers, and now we are taking our grandchildren. We’ve been for Christmas, birthdays, football games, funerals, on our way to or from vacations, and just because. During these nine hour driving marathons I have read, played car games with children, knitted, held dogs or cats on my lap, listened to music, slept, and sometimes I have even driven.

In October my husband and I drove to Michigan, the third trip for 2009. We had a great time, and the fall colors were at their peak. At the end of our visit, we packed the night before in order to leave very early in the morning to return to Tennessee. No kids or animals in the car, no snow, no fog, no threats of storms, not even any construction in Dayton. I decided to occupy my time by taking pictures of the landscape as we passed. At first thought, this may seem fairly simple. You sit in one place, and the scenery comes to you. Because it is passing you at 70 MPH, however, you have to be alert, and be ready to act fast!  Smashing the camera against the window as you try to pan without blurring, gets old faster than the landscape whizzing past you. The driver gets irritated when you try to take a picture on the left side of the road, or when you tell him to hurry and pass that eighteen wheeler that’s blocking your view on the right. Bumps on the road cause the camera to do an erratic little dance, and some part of the car seems to be in the way of every picture you try to take.  It’s a good thing that I love in-camera motion blur. I got my fill between Ann Arbor and Nashville!

Sunrise - south of Maumee, Ohio

I said we left early, and I meant it. We were already in Ohio when the sun came up. If I’d still been in bed, I would have missed this spectacular show!

Ohio farm

There aren’t a lot of hills in Ohio to block my view. I wonder if the people on this farm have finished their morning chores. Are they eating breakfast? Getting ready for church? I’m sure they could not imagine that someone in a passing car had just taken a picture of their lovely farm and field, with that deep blue early morning sky above them.

Trees dressed in yellow and orange

You can’t hold on to the beauty of fall when  you’re standing still. It’s even more fleeting when you pass it at seventy MPH.

Ohio field

The colors are beautiful, and I’m taking them home in my camera!

Ohio farm pond

I’m glad the furrows are distinct. I’m not sure how it happened, but I did have the camera on multiple shot and took several as we passed, hoping to get one where the rows were leading the eye straight to the pond. I can trash the discards later. No penalty.

Ohio barn

Someone told this farmer to shout his religion from the rooftop. And, he did!

A very weird juxtaposition of signs in Lima, Ohio

Mr. McGuire to Benjamin Braddock, “I want to say one word to you. Just one word.”

Another Ohio farm

It’s post card perfect, even at a 70 MPH blur.

Another Ohio barn

I cracked the car window pretty hard with the lens hood trying to get into position to take this one in time!

Birds in flight

It’s my turn to drive. What if I miss a picture as great as this?  I know better than to text and drive, but what if I had the camera set and just lifted it with one hand in the general direction, and snapped really fast? I might get a passable motion blur, at least. Just kidding.  Ha, ha.

The bridge over the Ohio in Cincinnati

Cincinnati! Half way home, and it isn’t even lunch time yet.

Beautiful Ohio, In dreams I dream of you

Time to sing Beautiful Ohio!

Florence, Y'all

OK, now I’ll drive. I’ve got the Florence, KY water tower. Stop at that last rest stop before we turn onto I-71 to Louisville and we can switch.

Rest stop trees in Kentucky.

Wow. These trees were all over the grounds of the rest stop. It was nice to take a picture while I, and the trees, were standing still. I didn’t have my land legs back, however, and this was a little out of focus. I used the Topaz Simplify filter to even out the color.  It works for me.

Home again

I drove until we were almost to Nashville, so there are no more pictures except for this capture of our beautiful city, which was like aiming for a keyhole when the bridge over the Cumberland opened up a view. So what if it’s out of focus? Think of the skill involved in avoiding the drivers’ head as I shot this out of the left side of the car from the right hand seat.

We’re going back to Michigan in a few weeks. The gorgeous fall colors will be gone, but I’ll still have my camera ready. I can take a picture of Nashville as we leave the city this time. And, I really want a shot of dinosaur world in Kentucky!

White Birches

White Birches

While we were exploring the Cedar Lake Camp in Chelsea, MI, I found a group of white birches. The bark on Birches in Southeastern Michigan isn’t as startlingly white as those found in Northern Michigan, but they are still striking trees. I decided to use one of my favorite camera techniques, an in-camera motion blur, to capture  my image of them. My method is to use shutter priority, setting the shutter dial between half a second and a second, and then, while moving the camera in the chosen direction, release the shutter. It is fun, and usually surprising, to see the resulting blur.  Some experimentation with the shutter speed setting is necessary, because it makes a big difference in the outcome. Sometimes you want a complete blur, and at other times it is nice to preserve some detail. In this instance, I had no detail, just vertical stripes, and thought it would be nice to have a hint of foliage among the vertical lines. I chose #95 Photoshop brush, which gave me large dab spots, and choosing from among the colors that existed in the image, I added discreet areas of color that looked like leaves.

Impressionist Garden at the Chicago Art Institute, and Iris Garden from the Quebec Canada Parliament Building are two other abstracts I created through use of the in-camera blur.

Cedar Lake Camp, Mi – Photographs

Michigan woods in autumn

I love photo excursions! When I go home to Ann Arbor, there is usually time set aside for one, or more. The destination is left up to my brother, because he is so stupendously good at it. Last January he took us to Barton Pond, and you have only to look at the pictures to see how perfect a winter photo trip that was. John picks the spots, my husband is always happy to carry my equipment, and they both like to go on these excursions, even though neither is a photographer. How lucky am I?

My husband has always been a cooperative equipment carrier. I remember the morning he acquired his official photographer’s assistant title. As he was leaving to go to work that day, I remembered that I had bought a new camera bag, and I said, “Oh wait, I bought you  a new camera bag. Try it, and see if it’s comfortable.” He stood in the kitchen in his suit and tie while I draped the bag over his shoulder, then mumbled that he was the poor man’s Tensing Norgay. I had no idea what he had just said, in fact, I thought he was suddenly speaking in tongues. I doubt there was a handful of people in the world besides my  husband, with his trivia stuffed brain, who knew that Tensing Norgay was Sir Edmund Hilary’s Sherpa porter on the climb to the top of Mr. Everest. Tensing is now my husband’s nickname and his official title  when he accompanies me on photo trips, schlepping fifty pounds of cameras, lenses, flashes, tripods, Etc. Etc.

Tensing was right there with his camera bag for the perfect October photo trip when John took us to picturesque Chelsea, Michigan, a town of about 5,000 people, home of Jiffy Mix, the Purple Rose Theater, very cool shops, and some great places to eat, like the Common Grille, where we had lunch. Chelsea is also located in the vast Waterloo Recreation Area, next to Cedar Lake, where there is a summer camp run by the State of Michigan, designed to introduce kids to Michigan’s natural world, and to instill in them a love of and respect for the outdoors. The camp was the destination of the day’s photography excursion.

Maples among the White Pines

We parked at the entrance to Cedar Lake Camp and walked about a quarter of a mile, enjoying everything that is wonderful about a Michigan fall: huge trees full of outrageous fall colors mixed with soft green White Pines that cushioned the paths with their fallen needles, a small cottage lined lake, cattails and milkweed gone to seed, and the haunting call of a Loon in the distance.  The camp was closed up, and very quiet, the kind of quiet that children learning to love nature should experience. The sound of traffic and children laughing has its place, but, oh, the miraculous sound of leaves fluttering to the ground, and the breeze rattling the dried branches of Elderberry bushes! There was a sense of anticipation throughout the camp of next season’s fun to come, rather than sadness that last summer was now gone forever.

Path paved with pine needles

Our path was strewn with pretty baubles.

Cabin in the woods 1.

Cabin in the woods 2.

Camp steps

Camp bench

Manhole cover with the year the camp was built.

The path through the camp led to Cedar Lake.

Swim at your own risk.

The canoes are tucked in until next season.

The picnic grounds are closed.

It would be a great time to be in these seats above a roaring campfire, looking out over the lake.

Life in Photography – October

Another month is gone. Well, not entirely. Halloween is tonight! My grandsons’ costumes might be classified as unconventional this year, or maybe I should say classified as creative. Walker insists that he will be Hulk wearing a dragon head. Stranger things than that have wandered the neighborhood on Halloween night.

Everything is not completely organized because the mother of two of the children has had H1N1 flu all last week, and I don’t think she will care if they dress in their birthday suits (and one of them might do just that!). The mother of the other two found out out that two will become three next spring. She has been contemplating having three children under four years of age, so Halloween is not at the top of her list of things to be concerned about, either. Karsten doesn’t want a baby brother or sister. He wants a dragon. I guess that is a whole dragon, not a half Hulk/half dragon.

I am going to post my Better Photo contest entries for October, as I did last month. By doing that I will be able to show that October was full of things to blog about. And I intend to do it!  It was also so full that I haven’t had time, yet. Stay tuned for Halloween, a fall visit/art day at Cheekwood with my friend Jayne, an excursion to The Farm, a fabulous photography workshop in Savannah, a trip to Ann Arbor for a reunion of my husband’s fraternity brothers and a photo excursion to Chelsea while we were there, planned by my brother.

I wasn’t into the full swing of October with my first week’s entries. Four photos were of wildflowers I shot from my August Ann Arbor trip.  The Home of Jax was taken while in New Orleans the previous April. I don’t even remember what prompted me to do that. Love Among the Zinnias was snapped in my sister-in-law’s garden during the memorable August trip to Rockville, Md/Burke, VA/DC area when our GPS turned on us, and we were nearly lost forever ‘neath the streets of Washington.  Maybe it was Boston.  It could have been Kandahar for all that Garmin woman cared!  The fall garden was from Centennial Park, a former autumn, but it seemed appropriate.

Finally, we arrive at October’s activities, but not until another wildflower from Ann Arbor, another New Orleans photo, and two typical October shots, which were taken in Nashville, show up. Entries for Oct. 12 and 13 are from the visit to Cheekwood to see the Scarecrow Exhibit.

More Cheekwood entries for October 14 and 15. The rest are from the Savannah photography workshop. I want to go back!

The 21st through the 25th are all Savannah shots.

During the last week of October I submitted all Savannah shots, except for two. Sulphur Creek is from my son-in-law’s property along the Cumberland River, loosely called The Farm, because no farming takes place there.  I have a post planned about that.  White Birches, submitted on Oct. 30, is from the photo trip to Chelsea, Michigan.  There is a post planned about that, too.  There’s hardly room for anything to happen in November, for trying to fit October in!

The Better Photo September contest was judged in October, and Winged Sumac was announced as a Finalist.  That is wonderful and gratifying, but my association with Winged Sumac will forever be standing in that restored prairie area of Long Hunter State Park, unaware of  the Chiggers that were taking their stations at various spots on my body, silently preparing for the attack that would begin in twenty-four hours.  Thanks, Better Photo.

I am grateful for all the wonderful things I saw and photographed in October, for the people I spent time with while I photographed, for the great fortune I have to own such incredible camera equipment.  I can’t honestly say I am grateful for Chiggers and H1N1, but I am grateful for the return to health that follows the misery. I don’t think Chiggers ever killed anyone, although it seemed possible at the time. H1N1, on the other hand, can be dangerous. Don’t brush it off if you happen to know of a few people whose symptoms were light.

Live to photograph another day!

September Song

Steps to the Perennial Garden at Cheekwood Botanical Garden - Better Photo Monthly Contest Second Place Winner!

September is gone. Have you noticed? While I was busy living in the moment every day, the whole darn month just disappeared on me!

It doesn’t seem like I do much until I conduct my monthly review, which, of course, is a photographic one. This entails looking back at the daily photos I have submitted to the Better Photo Monthly Contest, and also checking what I have uploaded to my Shuttercal Calendar page.

In addition to the final look at September, I will prepare a new photograph for daily entry into the Better Photo October Contest. It’s a never ending cycle, also in case you’ve never noticed! I always hope for a winner to emerge from my submissions, but if that were the only reason to enter, I would soon grow discouraged. I enter as a challenge to myself to improve my photography, continue on my dogged path to learn Photoshop, and to try out techniques and filters that allow me to artistically transform my photos. The additional benefit is that it allows me to see if I used my time well during the previous month, or if I earned a Slacker Award.

I used the Grab program, which I found in the Utilities folder of my Mac, to select and take a screen shot from the Better Photo site that shows my daily entries to the contest. In the first week of August, the most recently judged contest, I entered a portrait of Walker taken with my new 50mm fixed lens, a straggler from our June trip to Quebec City, two from the Chicago trip with William, a random Tennessee Winter sky, the Parthenon from a delightful afternoon at Centennial Park, and a flower from the perennial garden at Cheekwood from when I went with my vistiting photo pal, Susan.

Entries for August 1 – 7, 2009

In the second week of August I entered five photos taken at Cheekwood Botanical Garden, Walker in his pool the day of his birthday party, and another straggler from the July Chicago trip.

Entries for Aug 8 - 14, 2009

In the third week of August I entered some lilies from Cheekwood, play equipment from William’s school, another Chicago shot, two shots from downtown Nashville and a macro of a glass vinegar carafe.

Entries for August 15 - 21, 2009

In the fourth week I entered two more shots from the school playground, the marina at sunset from the April photo workshop in St. Augustine, a creatively enhanced picture of Royal St. in New Orleans, and two macro flowers.

Entries for August 21 - 27 , 2009

The last four entries were flowers taken at Cheekwood.

Entries for August 28 - 31, 2009

Nineteen out of my thirty entries for the month of August received an Editors’ Choice, which means they made it to the next round of judging. Two of those became Finalists – Water, Water Everywhere and Steps with Flair (this post’s opening photo), and out of 22,000 entries, Steps with Flair was a Second Place Winner! Entering photo contests is no different from other forms of gambling in one respect, it’s very addictive! It gives me renewed energy to get that next daily photo ready to upload.

Become a member of www.betterphoto.com, enter the contest, and find out for yourself. You’ll meet great photography friends, learn tons about photography, and there is no entry fee to enter.

Water, Water Every Where - Lobby ceiling of the Shedd Aquarium, Chicago, IL, a September Finalist in the BP Contest.

I send photos to Shuttercal for a different reason. It is strictly fun, meant to provide a place for a daily snapshot. Here is where I put a picture of my dining room window hanging in jagged shards from where the rock flew into it from the mower. It’s the perfect place to put a shot of your Iris melting into mush after a week of steady rain, and William getting a ride in the bucket truck with the tree man who came to remove a dead tree from the backyard. Sometimes I run out of time and submit the same photo to Better Photo and Shuttercal, but, for the most part, it helps me remember to have fun with a camera, and not always to be so concerned with trying to make a masterpiece,( not that trying to make a masterpiece isn’t fun). I often use my point-and-shoot or my phone camera for these shots.

My September Shuttercal Calendar

Each photo submitted is a full sized photo, although you create a small thumbnail to show up on the calendar. You can look at everyone else’s submissions for the day and make comments, choose favorites, or add photographers whose work you like as friends. Submissions to Shuttercal are always interesting, unpredictable and often hilarious. They depict the random moments and city scenery of people from all around the world. I enjoy seeing the stream of snapshots as they come in.

It’s nice to have a visual record of September, 2009, because the month is now gone.  It is already well into October.

Time flies so fast.  I’m shooting as fast as I can!

Chigger Rid!

Approaching the walking bridge.

It is an ironclad rule that I do not work in my yard after June 1, due to all known bug species of the Western Hemisphere loving to snack on me! So, why, on August 22, would I walk past a large sign warning of tick and chigger infestation ahead, and into a field of grasses and wildflowers and all species of bugs in the Western Hemisphere?  For photography, of course.

It was deceptive.  Middle Tennessee was experiencing unheard of summer temperatures in the sixties, more like a fall day when bugs are hibernating, or whatever they do at that time of year. And I had on plenty of repellent, the strongest stuff to be had.  If there isn’t a list of precautions, warnings and contra-indications on the label, then it can’t be any good. That’s my experience, anyway.  I was wearing sleeves, but have to admit that my ankles were exposed, and I suppose that is the route the chiggers took to attach themselves to me!

The foolhardy adventure that precipitated my misery was a Nature Hike to Long Hunter State Park with other members of the Nashville Photography Club. We photographed in the restored prairie, where the warning sign is located, and then headed down the road for a two mile hike around Couchville Lake.  Nothing seemed to be biting me at the time, so I felt safe going off the trail and into the grass, but only a very short distance! Maybe I knelt down a time or two in the weeds to take macro shots of  tiny flowers.If you don’t get close enough, after all, you just don’t get the shot.

The itching marathon didn’t begin for about twenty-four hours, so I think my photos might reflect the pleasure I was feeling to be enjoying such a beautiful day in Middle Tennessee with other people who love photography.

Fishing off the dock at the Visitor's Center.

Crossing Couchville Lake.

Yellow Coneflower

Purple flower

Magenta flower

Red Sumac

Native Tennessee Orchid

Besides bug bites, there is something else that is irritating me about my nature walk. I have three wildflower guides, and I cannot find the name of one flower in any of them unless I already know the name of it! All three are scholarly mazes, posing questions that must be answered before the page will ever be reached that contains the nugget of information being sought. Unless I’m sitting by a plant with ticks and chiggers crawling all over me, I cannot answer whether my flower has no apparent leaves or basal leaves only. What I know is that my flower is magenta, composite and blooms in late summer in Middle Tennessee. You can’t even thumb the pages hoping to stumble upon your magenta flower, because the pictures are black and white line drawings! I am on a search for a wildflower guide that works for me. I like to be name specific, and Purple Flower  isn’t making me happy.

I like to photograph grasses and leaves almost as much as the flowers. I cloned away a lot of black dots on these that I bet were various bugs on their way to feasting on me. I’m sure they were thinking, “Wow, dinner is served!”, as I ignored caution and wiggled in close to them.

Leaves of Grass.

The Arch

Leaves with lobed edges

Grass seeds

There were quite a few deer, which must be used to people visiting them in their park, because they showed no signs of alarm. The Skink, on the other hand, didn’t stay in my camera range long enough to focus on him. I’ll look for him again. Maybe he will be less camera shy.

Deer watching us

Skink

Mushrooms were plentiful along the way, although hidden from instant view under leaves and inside rotting logs. At least they don’t dart away into a tree crevice when they realize you’ve zeroed in on them with a camera.

Mushroom

Mushroom

We looked back as we came full circle around the lake, pausing to ponder the big questions: Why did God make Chiggers? How long does a Chigger bite itch? Has anyone ever been driven mad by the combined itching of hundreds of Chigger bites?

Looking back at our hiking route around the lake.

Reality Check

I live a double life.

Most of the time I walk in and out of my house, drive my car, meet my real time friends in person, travel by car or plane to distant places, hold and hug my grandchildren, smell the coffee brewing, and taste the ripe tomato basil salad before me for lunch. It can be chaotic, with a hundred sights and sounds and smells competing at once for attention.

Then there is my virtual life, where I sit before my computer, getting to know new friends through photos and comments they post on-line at Better Photo. I visit their homes from Seattle to Florida, from Italy to Australia, all on my computer screen. I meet their families, watch their children grow, travel with them to the far corners of the earth, celebrate birthdays and weddings and mourn their losses without ever even hearing the sound of their voices. We encourage each other in our photography, lend expertise during times of technical woes, share camera and Photoshop tips, and often provide comfort when life gets rocky. The virtual life is rich, and usually uncomplicated. Communication is quiet, one  to one, about one topic at a time. It doesn’t require scheduling, travel time, calculation of tides or rising before daylight to catch a sunrise.

Reality check!

This week the real life complications of scheduling, logistics, equipment, weather, and time of day merged with my virtual world when my photo friend, Susan, came to town. We were actually going to spend some real time shooting together! I loved every minute! We went to Cheekwood Botanical Garden to shoot, since I had to deliver my grandson to his summer art camp there. Camp time being from nine to twelve meant we were shooting in the worst light of the day. Nashville has had a relatively cool summer, but not on our shooting day! Very hot. Very humid. Very bright, contrasty light. Real life!

We didn’t care about all the reasons it wasn’t a good time to shoot. We just wandered through the various gardens and had a good time together. While we were in the perennial garden, a camera man from Channel 4 approached us and asked to take our pictures for the evening news. There had to be absolutely nothing going on in the world! Later we learned it was Photography Day at Cheekwood. You would never have known by looking around. Susan and I were the only photographers who didn’t know enough to get out of the heat and to wait for better light. Too bad he wasn’t accompanied by a journalist who could have told the story of two virtual friends who had come together to cook in the Middle Tennessee heat, and to take overexposed photos.

Here is a sampling of my photos for the day.  See Susan’s wonderful shots at My Life in Color.

Our first stop was the water garden. It was actually cool here. A little.

These steps took us to the Perennial Garden.

I tried an in-camera blur of Susan photographing the perennials, because the sun was too bright for a conventional shot. This photo also has a Polaroid Transfer filter effect applied to it.

Some of the flowers were shaded and made for some decent macros, like this Black Eyed Susan.

The Rudbeckia, or coneflower, is the Tennessee state flower.

Thankfully, from the standpoint of the heat, there was a steady breeze, but I waited forever for this Dahlia to be still enough to shoot.

The stone maiden stands watch over the reflecting pool behide the mansion.

The water lily pool was full of beautiful flowers.

We passed some fuchsia Coleus as we worked our way back to the car so we could pick up William from camp.

A motion blur shot of a Crepe Myrtle was my last photo before we went into the wonderfully air-conditioned Pineapple Room for lunch.

It was a wonderful day. Let me know when you can come back, Susan.  Maybe we could go to Travelers’ Rest, or Grassmere Farm.  I’ll alert the news media! Until then, you can find me at my computer.

Opportunity Knocks – Centennial Park in Summer

Parthenon

We detoured into Centennial Park for an impromptu photo shoot  on our way home from a lovely birthday lunch at J. Alexander’s on West End, compliments of my friend Elizabeth who was visiting from Memphis. I only had my point and shoot with me, but the profusion of summer blooms, overcast sky and unseasonably cool temperatures in Nashville’s busy urban park begged for some camera action.

Rose in the Memorial Garden for Abused and Neglected Children, with the Parthenon in the background.

Elizabeth with her Flip video camera.

Green Coleus in the Childrens' Garden

Red Coleus in the Childrens' Garden.

Red Hibiscus

Pink and red Hibiscus

Steps to the Sunken Garden.

Fruit panicles of the Golden Rain Tree.

Watauga Lake resident

How different the park looked on this summer day in July from my last visit in April. Redbud, Cherry, Iris and Daffodils had given way to Cannas, Crepe Myrtle and Hibiscus. It’s an everchanging scene, except for the Nashvillians who come in droves and the ducks in Watauga Lake that beg for bread whether it’s January or July. My point and shoot was definitely up for the job, and was suprisingly good on the macro setting. I don’t want to wait three months to go back, but the heat and humidity have returned, and it’s really bright out.

It pays to get on the ship while it’s at the dock.

The Garden as a Photography Studio

Garden beside the Art Institute, Chicago

Impressionistic view of the Art Institute garden

A beautiful garden is constantly changing. Spring flowers fade, summer blooms take their places, and periwinkle turns to crimson. The whole face of a garden can evolve naturally into something else in a week’s time, so I don’t know why I felt the need to alter the beauty I saw in the garden next to the Art Institute with my camera.  The shadows beneath the luminous branches, the varied greens of the leaves, the patterns formed by the branches created an already perfect place.  Still, I could not ignore the urge to move the camera while the shutter was open to create an intentional blur.  I wasn’t sure what would turn out until I looked, but the impressionistic result is an entirely different garden from the one that actually appeared before my eyes.

It often takes many attempts at intentional blur to get something pleasing.  I was trying to keep track of six year old William on our recent trip to Chicago, and he wasn’t about to hang around as I turned the garden into a studio while leisurely trying to achieve my goal, so I was very happy that my one and only shot turned out as it did.

Perfectly Boring

Jamie and William make plans for the uninteresting trash can video.

William and I met our friend Jamie, who lives in Chicago, outside the Field Museum. Jamie invited William to help him make a video with his iPhone camera, but William didn’t want his picture taken, as usual, and I suspect he had an overloaded brain from the dinosaurs, pirates and mummies he had just seen inside the Field.

Jamie, not one to be diverted from a creative mission, convinced William that a video had to be made. William didn’t have to be in it, and it could be something completely boring, like grass growing. In fact, nothing interesting would be allowed. A discussion followed as we wondered whether something devoid of interest would be inherently interesting, and if so, was it even possible to make a video of something uninteresting.

Field Museum

The Bean at Millennium Park

Several subjects were rejected as too interesting, but finally they settled on trash cans, and we began the long walk from the Field Museum to Millennium Park. The plan was to look for a place for lunch along the way, but I guess that was just too interesting for William and Jamie, and an empty stomach probably contributed to William’s eventual meltdown.

I hope I will see the trash can video. Garbage cans were featured in long shots and close ups. William hid behind one and slowly flipped the lid closed while Jamie filmed the mysterious self-closing trash can. The documentarian followed another trash can as it meandered down the sidewalk, William hidden on the far side doing the driving. My suggestion of panning along some wood slat fencing and ending up at a cluster of green trash cans was rejected as too interesting. William thought photographing a dumpster by the train tracks through the balusters of an overpass would be good, but, again, way too interesting, so it became a portrait of a lonely dumpster, the image uncluttered by any other object.

William in the garden next to the Art Institute. A rare photo of him not hiding his face from the camera.

So it went, until Jamie lost interest in the city of Chicago’s various solutions for refuse containment, and decided William should become the star. He could be a statue, or walk like a pidgeon, or hold his head in such a way with his mouth open to pretend he was catching water spouting from a fountain.  Even better, be in pictures with street performers! All great ideas, unless you are dealing with the stubbornly camera shy, two hours late for lunch William.

Statue with no head.

Hiding from the juggler.

I had to abandon my preferred role as approving, indulgent grandmother for that of scowling, we-are-not-putting-up-with-behavior-like-this disciplinarian, as I tried to clutch the hand of a six year old intent on running from the relentless camera, and keep him from darting onto Michigan Avenue. Jamie was using my camera to produce all this mayhem, which was good in a way, since I then had two hands free to wrestle a squirming octopus.

The cost of war. Protesters in front of the Art Institute.

More protesting in front of the Art Institute.

Enjoying the fountains at Millennium Park.

We threaded our way past jugglers, war and tax protesters and children splashing in fountains at Millennium Park. Everyone was having a great time.  I would have a good time once I got William back to the hotel.

If Abe is fake, is he still Honest?

Then we lost Jamie  as he slipped into some kind of creative coma and disappeared into the crowd to shoot a seven foot giant wearing an Abraham Lincoln costume, and who knows what else.  Since he didn’t come back and he had my camera, I began to have my own breakdown.  William straightened right up, intuitively sensing that mine was the preemptive hissy  fit.

There are many twists and turns to the rest of the story, but let’s just say I liked it much better when it was perfectly boring.

I read this post to William and asked him how he liked it.  He says it’s boring.