The expansive grid of warehouses and industrial facilities in what was once Chicago’s meatpacking district have an eerie, cyberpunky regularity. An aggressive teal/magenta color grading maxes out the Matrix/Tron vibes.
Tag: Illinois
Northside Beaches
The steady, even grid of Chicago and its suburbs terminates into chaotic reality when it hits the shore of Lake Michigan, but hey—at least there’s a beach.
Leaving O’Hare
Runways on runways on runways, with the Rayleigh-scattering-induced silhouette of the Chicago skyline in the distance, on this summer morning over O’Hare International Airport.
Morning Light on the Grid
Sections of Chicago’s hinterlands that were once stockyards and meatpacking facilities have long since been converted to serve as industrial parks, but the sense of an endless grid remains.
New Train Station in Clarendon Hills
A visit to my home town of Clarendon Hills brought a surprise: the unremarkable train station from the mid-twentieth century has been replaced by a modern station and platform with a lot more greenery and some really interesting materials.
The station itself uses both lacquered rails (on the left) and wooden slats at odd intervals (Fibonacci-esque, but I didn’t measure to be sure.)
Canal Through Suburbs
Chicagoland’s nearly 2D topography and nineteenth-century population boom conspired to make for a remarkably uniform grid of structures and roads. Even the water that might “go rogue” in another setting is often confined to the grid.
Lake Michigan Coast
Where Illinois meets Lake Michigan, a sunny winter afternoon makes a natural instance of the “classic” orange and teal look.
Chicago Silhuoette
An early-evening flight into Chicago puts the setting sun behind the skyline along Lake Michigan, reflecting silhouettes from the placid surface.
Rain Trucks
Rainy nights on the interstates are threatening, and few sights represent that better than the aligned brake lights of 18-wheelers, glaring out between the raindrops.
Guest Post: Confirmation
Today’s post comes courtesy of Piper J. Klemm:
Maggie Bracco and Alex Jayne’s Thomas Edison, Winners of the $10,000 Welcome Stake at the Showplace Spring Spectacular II at the Lamplight Equestrian Center in Wayne, Illinois on June 13, 2013.
Train and Storm
Chicago’s suburbs are filled with older train stations like this one. In an area where quaint, older homes are often knocked down to make way for McMansions, these stations are sometimes an area’s only link with the past. (Luckily, Hinsdale is better than most areas in this respect.) On a particularly dramatic and thunderstorm-ready afternoon, this particular train platform feels like it could be unstuck in time.
Crusty Ice
On the same day that I took this photograph, I found this awesome, half-frozen pond in the back of the forrest preserve. Though the sun was setting and the clouds were already picking up an orange-pink color, from this angle only the bluest parts of the sky were reflected. It had been above freezing for a couple of days, and the ice had melted to the point that it comprised two or three different textures. The brightness of those colors and the variations in the pond’s surface made for a nice contrast with the dormant and dead plants surrounding it.
Decaseconds 