Category Archives: My Photos

My Photos

StandHereForever.com

September 28, 2011 by mg33

A couple of weeks ago I finally got around to starting up a site on Tumblr after putting some thought into what kind of site I could create that wasn’t entirely about my own photography. After our vacations to Ireland and Iceland this summer, I came back with a large amount of landscape photography that made me realize how much I love images that capture the vastness of just being in one place and staring off to the horizon. StandHereForever.com is built around such imagery, both of my own and of those I’ve come to know through different websites and through Flickr. I hope to look back in a few months or in a year and find that I’ve cataloged some of the best landscape photography I’ve come across, and I’m also hoping to do some short interviews with the photographers I’ve featured to find out what inspires them and who some of their favorite photographers are.

Visit StandHereForever.com.

Iceland 2011 Vacation Photos

August 29, 2011 by mg33

My fiance and I returned from our week-long trip to Iceland a few days ago, and while the weather in Chicago was fantastic this weekend, I managed to stay indoors and go through all of the photos we took to put together an initial gallery of some of our favorite things from the trip. Not an easy process… I was still working on adding photos to Flickr from our trip to Ireland this past May as recently as a week ago, so those will be posted here very soon!

I plan on writing much more about Iceland later this week, but for now I’ll simply say that the country is a fascinating and incredibly beautiful place. As you’ll see in many of these photos, the endless variety of landscapes never stops – it is a place of constant beauty and ability to feel a connection to the earth and unlike any other place I’ve ever been. We had a car for the week and drove nearly 1,000 miles around the country, and all I could think about was when I could go back someday and hike, camp, and generally rely only on my feet to get where I need to go. I can’t suggest a trip there enough if you’re looking for something unlike any other trip you could take. I’ll have more about the overall trip in another post later this week, as well as some video we took along the way. Enjoy the photos!

Iceland 2011 – View Photos

Pritzker Pavilion – Chicago

July 19, 2011 by mg33

Godspeed! You Black Emperor Live At The Vic In Chicago

March 28, 2011 by mg33

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View Photos – Godspeed! You Black Emperor

I got to see Godspeed! You Black Emperor tonight at The Vic in Chicago, and like many people never thought I’d get to see them, well, ever. I don’t think they’ve toured in ten years. There’s no new album, not even any new songs. Just the massive beauty of an often frightening and melancholy mix of guitars, percussion, a violin and stand-up bass guitar. They played exactly 2 hours and 15 minutes and this was their third night in Chicago after two shows at the Metro. I think I got into them around 10-12 years ago while in college; they were right alongside Mogwai when I was getting into instrumental rock. They had some great videos going, being played on four reel-to-reel projectors, with the film often being burned in the process. In fact, if you take a look at the photos, you’ll see some of the destroyed film hanging. From what I’ve heard these films are often used just once at one show, making for a pretty unique experience.

There’s a live copy of the 03/26 Metro show that’s been posted here at archive.org, as well as a copy of the 03/27 Metro show here. The quality is excellent and I got a listen in this afternoon before going to the show. I’m hoping there’s one out there soon from the Vic show tonight. I had my D90 along at the show and got some decent pictures. Wish I’d taken along my 50mm f1.8 but opted for my 17-50mm Tamron instead. The photos don’t do the show justice, but it’s good to have something to look back on!

Godspeed! You Black Emperor Official Site

2011 Chicago Blizzard

February 4, 2011 by mg33

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View Photos – 2011 Chicago Blizzard

Here in Chicago, we just experienced the third worst blizzard/winter storm of all time. In the nine years I’ve lived here, I’ve been dreaming about something like this. Just once I wanted to see what it took to shut the city down and see a massive amount of snow. Well, we got that! Snowfall totals on average were about 20 inches, with drifts much higher than that.

The storm came through on Tuesday evening, and during the worst of it a friend and I set out hiking down to the lake on the north side of Chicago, encountering 50 – 60 mph winds, and a totally deserted Lake Shore Drive. It was really an awesome time; I managed pretty well in full snowboard gear and goggles. It was definitely one of the coolest experiences I’ve had here, and when the storm let up on Wednesday my fiance and I got in a nice afternoon walk back down to the lake for a couple miles surveying the stranded cars and overall beauty of so much snow. Now we just wait for it to melt, which isn’t happening any time soon.

To see photos from the blizzard, click the photo above or click here.

Devil’s Head Sunset – December 2010

January 17, 2011 by mg33

P1110261, originally uploaded by mg33_chicago.

Devil’s Head Ski Resort in Wisconsin has quickly become one of my favorite places anywhere. I took this photo during the Rock and Ride snowboarding event in December 2010. I’ve not done a thing to it – the sunset was was seriously out of control for about 5 wonderful minutes. I thought I was gazing over the hills at Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings!