the 312 hole

Here are a few photos from the Cubs’ opening weekend against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Spirits were high and seats were empty. Now, just 5 days into the season, spirits are low and seats will be even more empty. The Cubs have lost 2/5 of their starting rotation to the DL – and hopefully the short-kind of DL, not the Dr. Andrews-kind of DL.

Anyway, here are a few shots from the game on Saturday. More photos to come later.

Click here to see a few more photos.

Every time I see Will Hoge, he gets better and better. The guy is a class-act performer, with poignant lyrics and rocking tunes. His songs continue to get more and more powerful over the years. He’s been through more in the last few years than most artists go through in a lifetime, yet he keeps marching on and touring. Night after night, city after city, he leaves it all on the stage for every person in the crowd. Will is by far the most genuine person I’ve come across in the music world, and he deserves all the success that comes his way.

I will be posting more photos in a few days, but here are a handful of shots from Saturday’s show up in Evanston.

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Middle Brother is composed of members from Deer Tick, Dawes and Delta Spirit – combining a super group of awesome sounding rock music. When you mix in opening sets from the full Deer Tick and Dawes bands, with a side of Jonny Corndawg, this Middle Brother tour is an off the charts party. Photos here are from their latest stop at Metro in Chicago.

Click here for more photos of Middle Brother.

Click to see more photos of Hollywood.

I would love to get some feedback on everyone’s favorite panorama of the Chicago Skyline. I’m posting a couple of new ones and a few old ones and putting them to a vote. I’ve had some people give me feedback already, but I thought it would be fun to try out a poll on the site – which I’ve never done before. Let me know your thoughts.

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Option #1

Option #2

Option #3

Option #4

Option #5

More photos to come, but here are a few shots from Hollywood Holt’s set last night at Schubas. Hollywood was also one of the many DJs / performers at Saturday night’s 5th and final Claychella event. He spent more time DJing on Saturday, but last night he did his rap thing.

The pictures I took in February come from complete opposite ends of the spectrum: Chicago’s 3rd largest snow storm in history versus Costa Rica; Chicago skyline versus remote Central American beaches.

As I mentioned before, I spent a few hours out by the Adler Planetarium on a cold evening in early February. This was my first experiment with the creation of panoramic images, which are huge files composed of stitching together several landscape or portrait-oriented photos. For a first attempt, I’m pretty happy with the results, and I hope to try again when the weather isn’t so miserable – although I do like the bit of snow in the corner of the first image, which adds some depth and a chill to the image.

View a larger version of this image on a black background.

View a larger version of this image on a black background.

After a week and a half out of Chicago, I’m heading back later this evening. We spent 7 days down in Costa Rica at Recreo – a gorgeous 63-acre development in the northwest corner of the Guanacaste province with private villas and genuine people. I have plenty of photos from this trip, which I will start to post once I’m back at home.

For now, here are three different shots of the Chicago skyline as the sun slowly set one cold night in early February. I sat out in the cold for way too long that evening, but ended up with some good shots of the city. I have some actual panorama shots that I’ve created, which I will post after I sort through all of the Costa Rica pictures.

A little over a year ago, I was out on the lakefront taking some photos. I remember it was a perfect fall day – nearly 60 degrees and sunny. Fast forward to this week, and I found myself in the same location, but with drastically different conditions. My thoughts instantly flashed back to that October day, and I snapped a photo – thinking how a comparison of the two shots would be pretty cool. I feel these two shots do a great job of showing the diversity of seasons we experience in Chicago – for better or for worse. Now if it were only spring…