A great year starts today!

Hope yours ends up on this side of awesome.

Carried away

Snapped this shot during some down time during a recent family portrait session. The little guy was getting restive and mom decided to take the young man for a spin. He loved it.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Flame on!

The fish boil is a Door County tradition that, depending on whom you ask, was either brought to Wisconsin from the "old country" or originated right there on the Door peninsula a century and a half earlier. The premise is simple -- potatoes, onions, salt and chunks of Lake Michigan whitefish are introduced at specific times to a large pot of boiling water over an open fire. The finale is the boilover, when the fire is doused with kerosene, which causes the water to boil over the sides of the pot, which simultaneously removes the accumulated fish oils and douses the fire. Time to eat.



A good boilmaster is equal parts cook, thermodynamics engineer, showman, interpretive guide and pyromaniac. Such a person works the fire pot at Pelletier's Restaurant in Fish Creek, Wisconsin. Seven times a day, seven days a week for 26 weeks of the year, Matt Peterson, a third generation boilmaster, stokes the fire, engages the crowd, times the addition of ingredients to the pot, and poses for pictures. Together, we estimated that Matt's image is snapped about 5,ooo times in a given week, possibly giving him the edge over the goats on the grass roof of Al Johnson's restaurant in Sister Bay. Not a bad way to make a living.

I happened upon the 8:00 p.m. fish boil at Pelletier's, the last of the day. Matt confided to the crowd that the day's finale gets an extra charge -- double the dose of kerosene. (You'll note in the photographs below that everyone is standing well behind the chain fencing -- everyone, that is, except for a certain photographer who had poked his head under the chain to get those shots.)

This was a single-pot finale. During the busier dinner hours, Matt will have two pots going at once. He explained that in a two-pot scenario, the first pot gets a regular dose of fuel while the second gets a double dose. He tried to explain to me the dynamics of the timing and sizes of the charges to ensure proper consistency between the food in the two pots. I wasn't buying it. It was mainly to provide a better show for the patrons, wasn't it?

"Just between you and me, yes," he admitted.

I staked myself out in a corner of the chained-off boil area to wait for the conflagration. Two things I ignored -- the scorch marks on the ground and the singed shrubbery behind me -- should have told me that I was going to be pretty close to the action. I also used a very wide angle lens to frame the shot. It would catch the fireball and crowd reaction nicely, but it would also make objects in the viewfinder closer than they appeared. I set my camera to fire five frames a second, set the focus and exposure to manual so the fireball would not throw either setting off and waited for the blast.







The blast came and I felt warm. Very warm. In the second shot of the sequence above, it appears as if Matt is looking my way to assess the extent of the restaurant's liability at setting a photographer on fire. The third shot of the sequence shows Matt disregarding me in favor of getting out of Dodge himself.

After examining my arms and finding no singed hairs, I met up with my wife, who for some reason doesn't share my love of exploding pots of fish, and headed over to Sunset Park to catch the sunset and its watchers.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Sunset in the park

Sunset is a spectator sport in Door County, Wisconsin. The harbors, parks and marinas on the western edge of the peninsula begin to fill with people about a half hour or so before sunset. They come to watch, reflect and photograph while the sun dips below the horizon. I come to watch the people watching the sunset.

Fish Creek, Wisconsin is home to the aptly-named Sunset Park, a clearing on the west end of town on the shore of Green Bay. It seems like I always come away with an interesting picture whenever I visit. This time was no exception.

I spotted the couple on the park bench and noted the folks in the distance sitting on a low retaining wall on a short bluff. The picture pretty much composed itself. I liked the shadows cast by the low-angled sunlight. I set myself up about three feet behind the bench and made several exposures to be sure I had all the elements -- sky, sun, bench, foreground -- properly exposed at least once, with plans to assemble the final image later in Photoshop.

Then I left the sunset watchers to finish out their day.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Balancing Trio

They've got nice rocks in Door County, Wisconsin. I balanced a few whilst waiting to see what a storm over Green Bay would do. At this point, it had stalled and was breaking apart.

It's been a while since I did any rock balancing. Good to see that I still had the touch. The stormy backdrop was nice.

Oh, and the pressure was on for this piece of ephemeral art. A trolley full of tourists had arrived at the location and were watching me work. Got a couple of oohs and ahhs when I got the center formation balanced.

Thankyouverahmuch. I'm here all week.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan

Cooler by the lake

Weekend sailors enjoy the late afternoon at Reefpoint Marina in Racine, Wisconsin. This particular day, the cool lake air mixed with the hot humid onshore air to produce thick fog over the water.



But the fog didn't hamper the sunset in any way.



Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Candid shots

From the Port Washington Pirate Festival last weekend. The minstrel making music and telling tales of life on the open seas ...



The flaunter of flasks in the marketplace ...



And the sorcerer, using his silver box of magic to capture people's souls.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

There be pirates

I headed up to the Port Washington Pirate Festival in Port Washington, Wisconsin last weekend. My main objective was to come back with a number of piratey portraits to feed my portfolio. I figured that anyone willing to go to the effort to turn themself into a pirate wouldn't mind posing for a couple of photos. I was right. I ran into one group of scallawags and wenches that called themselves the Sea Ratts. All I had to do was ask once to take a few photos and I became their official photographer for the weekend. Individual shots, couples, small groups, large group. I came away with shots for my portfolio and Getty Images, they had photos for their web site. Win-win.



I learned that many of the piratey participants traveled a regular summer circuit of festivals and fairs ranging from Rennaissance to Revolutionary War. One gentleman I spoke to said that since the economy tanked, having something like that to fall back on was not too bad of a way to make a living. He wouldn't go into detail about how they made money -- I presume some made money through selling concessions and others through performance fees, but I'm only speculating.



This was my favorite subject throughout the weekend. Meet the "Governor" of Port Washington. His job was to act alarmed and comically order his militia to repel the landing of a pirate vessel and subsequent invasion of his port, every two hours on the hour each day. I'd catch him between invasions, and he would always snap back into character as soon as he saw me and my camera. Lots of fun.

I've been meaning to turn my camera more often to the human landscape and this summer I plan to do more of it.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Who's entertaining who?

Simultaneous primate entertainment at the ape/human exhibit, Henry Vilas Zoo, Madison, Wisconsin.

Photograph © 2010 James Jordan.

Carving his niche

After the disappointing ice sculpture fiasco, I shot some of the morning activity at Fish Creek's Winter Festival. Having sufficiently chilled myself to the bone after spending nearly three hours on the town's frozen harbor photographing kite fliers, ice bowlers, snow golfers and toilet seat tossers, I returned to a pre-determined rendezvous point to meet my wife.

I discovered that a guy with a chainsaw had set himself up in front of our rendezvous point and was busily, loudly and smokily carving away on a stump of wood. The guy was Dave Bartels, a chainsaw artist from Clintonville, Wisconsin who specializes in whimsical woodland creatures. I wasn't sure if Dave came in specially for the Winter Festival or if he regularly does Saturday demonstration carvings at the local retailer that carries his work. No matter. Watching Dave at work more than made up for the lack of quality ice sculptures in town that day.



Dave seemed to know exactly what he wanted to accomplish with the wood, methodically and purposefully circling the stump, roughly forming the animal cut by cut, wood chips and blue smoke billowing all the while. More precise and fine cuts followed. Finishing touches were applied with a blow torch to darken areas of the wood.



While I was photographing Dave from the street and from standing atop a nearby park bench to clear the protective mesh fence that surrounded his work area, several of his sculptures departed the scene while money simultaneously flowed into Dave's pocket.

Good work if you can get it.

Take that, wind

It's Wisconsin. It's winter. The wind is howling and driving the apparent coldness of the winter air down to single digits, causing one's own digits to cease any sense of touch after a few seconds' exposure. What to do?

Throw something pretty up into that wind and enjoy the sight.



Part of the recent Fish Creek Winter Festival in Door County, Wisconsin involved an event called Kites Over the Bay, a confab of kite afficianados who descended on the frozen harbor in the little village to display a serious dedication to the art and performance of kite flying.

While simultaneously photographing and freezing on the frozen waters of Fish Creek's harbor, I had a brief conversation with Barbara Meyer, who had traveled with her husband from Minnesota for the event (that's Barbara and her hubby at the top of this post with a kite they had built from one of their designs). I learned that many of the kite fliers that day had traveled from several states bordering Wisconsin and that there is an American Kiteflyer's Association.

The KOTB kites ranged from standard to exotic, with more than a few of the inflatable variety. One intrepid flier decorated his spot on the ice with several "schools" of fabricated fish that "swam" upstream against the wind.



All in all, a colorful diversion from the nearby toilet seat tossing, ice bowling and snow golf of the Fish Creek Winter Festival Games.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Fore! below ...

Winter Olympics? Meh. What's going on in Vancouver is nothing compared to the XXIII Games of the Winter Festival in Fish Creek, Wisconsin the weekend of February 5-7. You won't see Toilet Seat Tossing or Golf-a-Tennis-Ball-Into-a-Hole-in-the-Ice on NBC., naw ya wawn't, doncha know.

Wisconsonites braved wind chills near zero to participate. Some even wore gloves and hats and zipped their coats more than halfway, that's how cold it was.

All the activity was for a good cause -- giving me something interesting to photograph while freezing my heinie off. Which I did (photograph and freeze that is).

More to come.

Photographs © 2010 James Jordan.

Scenes from a flea market -- Waiters

So not everyone attending a flea market is an enthusiastic participant. They've agreed to come along out of duty, guilt or the promise of something enjoyable for them when the ordeal is over.

Waiters just kind of sit and stare. At the surroundings, at a distraction device they've had the foresight to bring with them, at nothing in particular. They're in suspended animation until they perceive a cue that it's time to get up and move on to the next location.

To wait some more.

Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

Scenes from a flea market -- Tie dye guy

How many relics from the sixties can you spot in this photo? VW bus? Check. Love beads? Check. Tons of tie dyed fabrics? Check. Guy that looks like a cross between Jim Henson and Chewbacca? Checkaroo.

A couple of weeks before my daughter's wedding, mom, dad and daughter spent a Sunday afternoon at a flea market in St. Charles, Illinois. Mom and daughter went to search out antique curios, knickknacks and assorted junk for items to possibly adorn the future wedded couple's apartment. Dad went to look for interesting stuff to photograph.

Right out of the gate (or rather, right inside the gate) was Tie Dye Guy selling stuff that I never really cared for the first time around. My mom and dad must have done a masterful job of instilling middle American values in this baby boomer because I found nothing much of interest in the countercultural lifestyle of the sixties.

OK, I did wear cutoff jean shorts back then and I did disavow materialism until the 1980s. Does that count?

More flea markety goodness to come.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Twisted thoughts on a Monday morning

The past several days have been pretty rough on 50-year-old guys. First Michael Jackson, then Billy Mays came to a sudden stop. Maybe I would not have thought much about it had I not been a 50-year-old guy myself. But I am and I did.

What I have been thinking about is how fine a line exists between creative genius and insanity. The very thing that causes creatives to think differently from everyone else causes them to think differently than everyone else. Those who are comfortable thinking the same as everyone else generally labels that type of thinking as “weird.”

Would Michael or Billy have made the same kind of impact in their lines of work if they thought and behaved like everyone else? I doubt it.

The same-thinking crowd recognizes that creativity is valuable. That’s why they make reference to it frequently in conferences, staff meetings and on job descriptions. The truth is, if they were to experience the full force of a truly creative person, it would scare them to death. Real “thinking outside the box” changes the box forever, and very few people are comfortable with that prospect.

Instead, most organizations practice a sort of “safe creativity” – push the envelope, but not too far, the result of which is still homogenized with everything else that organization ever did; a unique shade of beige perhaps, but beige nonetheless.

I’ve never been happy with beige. I like bold strokes of color. Extreme contrasts. Paths that take unusual turns. Stuff that 90 percent of everyone else would never have thought of doing, or if they had thought of doing it, not doing it for fear of being labeled “weird.” I guess that makes me weird.

OK, I’ll take it.

Photograph © 2008 James Jordan; licensed by Getty Images.

Trying to tell me something?

I was cut off in traffic the other day by a woman driving a minivan with this bumper sticker on it. Either she desires a world of impatient, pushy drivers, or she desires a world full of people who do not mind that she is an impatient pushy driver.

Or maybe she just borrowed the minivan and doesn't care much about changing anything.

Romancing the rust

At the Fox Valley Trolley Museum in South Elgin, Illinois, South Shore & South Bend Railway car number 14 slowly oxidizes along with a number of other relics from the days when inter-urban travel by rail gave folks a reason to keep the cars maintained.

What is it about people that causes us to hang onto stuff long after its usefullness has past? I have a basement full of things that I haven't used in years, but can't find it within myself to ditch them. Why is there romance in the rust and dust?

Five images taken with circular polarizer and combined in Photomatix Pro. Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Eisenhower Expressway, Chicago, 10:00 a.m.

Traffic was crawling, and as long as I had to crawl along with it, I thought I'd play with a camera. Set the focus and exposure manually (so the camera would fire immediately and not waste time focusing and exposing) and stuck the camera at arm's length toward the passenger side window (which was rolled down to eliminate reflections) to see what I could catch.

What I caught was a little slice of life on the freeway while idling. A different kind of street photography. Photography while stuck ON the street.

I saw the lady in her business suit talking on a cell phone. So I aimed and fired. Taking care of business in the backup? Phoning in that she'd be late to her next appointment? Just yakking to pass time?

I didn't see the truck driver giving me the skunk eye -- that was a bonus. Little did he suspect that his route that day was going to take him to the internets.

Even the accidental odd angle adds some tension to the scene.

One thing my wife and I noticed when we moved to Chicago about 18 years ago was that people tended not to get aggravated while sitting in Chicago's many traffic james. They just take it in stride here. It's a part of the deal, and it's no big deal.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

This picture makes me happy

Not that operatic death scenes are particularly cheerful. At least I'm pretty sure this was a death scene. After the woman sang her part, she collapsed in a heap to the floor, and then a burly doctor-looking dude came on stage and belted out "Morte!" then everyone else looked sad and sang some type of something in a minor key before the curtain came down.

You can probably tell by now that I don't know much about opera. The reason I'm happy is that I was able to pull off a very difficult photo assignment at Roosevelt University last night -- a student production of three scenes from famous operas that I only previously knew by name of composer and title. This one was written by a German French fella. ("Offenbach. Jacques Offenbach.")

Stage lighting that ranged from too low to too bright, weird color balances and lack of reliable auto focus at times (it doesn't work too well in near darkness) flew into the engines of Flight Automatic. I had to call "My Aircraft," grab the controls and guide the photo shoot to a safe landing in the Chicago River. This photo could have been a noisy, blurry mess (and a lot of shots were), but continuous evaluation and button pushing throughout the evening resulted in about 100 to 120 good photos (out of 300 shots taken).

Man, it could have been me singing that death song.

Missed It By That Much Dep't.: I received an e-mail from National Geographic Adventure magazine today. They're looking for hiking/biking/camping photographs taken in Newport State Park in Door County, Wisconsin. Wouldn't you know there is just one state park in the county in which I've never pulled out a camera? I referred the photo buyer to several other DC photographers whose work I admire. Ah, well.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Benched

I'm warming up at the local park for the outdoor rock stacking season. Looks like the gang was there too -- warming up for the tagging season.

Yes, it's balanced. No tricks. Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.