Mark Cassino Photography - Mark's Blog

From a hotel:

And in a museum:

Both shots taken in Chicago.

At the band shell in Millenium Park, Chicago:

Looking west on the Michigan Avenue Bridge as the sun sets. July 27, 2017.

Here are snapshots from a Chicago vacation, taken a few weeks ago. I’ve been in a film mood these days and decided to forgo the DSLR and take a film camera (Pentax Mz-S) and lots of film (Tri-X mostly) for this trip. (Technical notes at the end of the post). It was a good plan and I thoroughly enjoyed burning through film and developing it once home.

We spent three nights in Chicago, arriving late afternoon on Wednesday and leaving on Saturday afternoon. Most of these images were taken on Thursday, since Friday and Saturday were devoted to museums. I’ve arranged them in chronological order based on the time of day at which they were taken, more or less.

Click on any image for a larger file.

Morning

Buckingham Fountain



Tall Ships






Tall Boats



Trees Near the Waterfront




Running



On the Sea Wall




Afternoon

Detail



Hanging In Millennium Park



Abundance




Want



On Navy Pier





Chicago River



Waiting



Evening

Evening Reflections



Zombies Prowl




The Orchestra Plays




Wrigley Building



Carbide and Carbon Building



The NBC Building



Evening Street Corner



Carriage Ride



Dark Alleys






After Evening

Spirits Three



Dreamland



Peace

Technical Notes: All photos were taken on Tri-X 400 or on Arista Premium, a film that is quite similar to Tri-X. With a few exceptions, development was either HC110 Dil B for 7.5 minutes (ISO 400) or for 16 minutes(rolls pushed to ISO 1600 for night shots.) I developed the first 4 rolls in HC110 Dil H but was not happy with the additional grain.

Here’s a snapshot of the Chicago skyline in the early morning, as taken from a hotel room last year. I re-worked the photo, previously posted here, in Photomatix. I really like the results on this morning photo, but oddly, Photomatix didn’t help the night shot at all.

I visited Chicago earlier this week, mostly to sign books on Monday at the International Reading Association convention at McCormick Place. Tuesday and Wednesday were devoted to museums and otherwise hanging out. The Eggleston and Vernacular Photography exhibits at the Chicago Art Institute are highly recommended.

After the Chicago visit we moved on into Iowa and spend a few days there. I visited Stone City, famous from the Grant Wood painting, but was disappointed. It, like all other places, did not look as glorious in real life.

Well – here’s a couple of photos of a place – the city of Chicago. Taken from my hotel room (Chicago Hilton, 22nd floor), we have sun rise and sun set on the city on Tuesday, April 27, 2010.

Things have been a bit quiet around here lately. I spent the first week of this month in Chicago, enjoying the urban life. It was great trip. Pam and I staying at the Congress Plaza Hotel, right on Michigan Avenue. Highlights included visits to the Art Institute, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Field Museum, and, of course, The Dark Knight at the Imax.

Since vacations are supposed to be an opportunity to get away from old habits, I decided to bring a film camera. I finally used up the last of my Ilford XP2 Super – which was considerably out of date. I also shot over a dozen rolls of Fuji Neopan 400 and Adox CHM 400 film.

The Adox film is re-badged Ilford HP 5+, and used to be sold through J and C Photo. The expiration date on the box was 7/2008 – so shooting it in the first week of August, 2008, was right on time. Remarkably, aside from the XP2 Super and a couple of rolls of Plus-X, all the film I shot on this trip was fresh. I guess I’m still using up 35mm ISO 400 B&W film.

I shot 15 rolls of film during the trip, and have been slowly working my way through developing them. The film workflow is certainly a lot slower than the digital workflow, especially when you are developing it yourself.

For development, I mixed up one of my last bags of Micrdol-X, which I’ve been using at the 1:3 dilution. The development time for the Adox CHM 400 is easy to remember – 22 minutes at 22C. For the Fuji Neopan, I’ve been working with the 15.5 minutes at 22C.

So far, 12 of the 15 rolls shot have been developed, but only a handful of those have been scanned. Did I mention that the film workflow is pretty slow?

At home, other projects have been keeping me away from blogging. First and foremost, I’m trying hard to re-do this entire website. Really – it’s time for a new look and a structure that makes a little sense. So, I’m trying to hold off on adding to the current site while the new one is in process – so no new images in the Image Stream at this point.

It’s interesting to see how photos change with time. Some grow more interesting, and more meaningful, others fade away, and still others become downright silly or embarrassing.

Of course – the photos don’t change. The photographer does, however. So often the perception of a photo is tainted by the impression we had when taking it, the subject matter, or even how we were feeling at the instant when the shutter button was snapped. All those things are distinct from the final image that is made, but still influence our own subjective impressions.

And sometimes our initial impressions of a photo may lead us to dismiss it, simply because it didn’t seem significant at the time that it was taken. That was the case with the photo shown here - Chicago Harbor . At the time it was taken, I felt that that the sailboats were order less and akimbo, the details of the lighthouse and break water were too insignificant, and that the water and sky lacked punch.

But after a little work in Photoshop the sky and the water started to work, and I started to like the boats, each heading in its own direction.

I might hate it in a week, but after pulling some 12x12 inch prints, right now I like this shot.