Entries associated with the tag "You Shoot":

sierraromeo

Photo by only-connect, which reminds me of the beautiful work of Tokihiro Sato.

Photo by Heather Phillips

Photo by Jeffrey Horvath

Since it's Uptown week here at the Reader, the new header is Lynn Haller's shot of Eternal Silence, the 1909 sculpture by Lorado Taft in Graceland Cemetery. It marks the grave of hotelier and land speculator Dexter Graves, who died in 1844; his son commissioned the monument. It's a famous sculpture and thus difficult to photograph creatively, which is why I like this shot. The sculpture has a reputation for its striking morbidity, but shooting in black and white and, most important, shooting the face in light instead of shadow, gives the work a sense of peace not found in many depictions.

This week's glamorous header image comes from Renee Haddad, whose photography has been featured on the You Shoot page. I love how the framing, dramatic lighting, and motion give it richness and drama. Note that the face is out of focus and off to the side, while the actual focal point of the picture is the center of the parasol, so the eye is led back and forth across the picture. Great composition.

I like this shot even more, but it didn't work as a header image for reasons unrelated to its quality. It's another glamorous shot but from an angle you wouldn't expect. Great lighting, too.

And check out the companion image.

This hasn't ceased to freak me out, and probably never will. I'm amazed, amused, and kind of horrified every year.

Photo by Jim Walker, who also took the current header photo.

The Pitchfork Music festival is outdoing itself this year: Sonic Youth will be playing the whole of their masterpiece, Daydream Nation. To whet your appetite, check out the video of "Teenage Riot," which doubles as a Where's Waldo of cutting-edge cultural figures. Can you find Mark E. Smith, Harvey Pekar, and Patti Smith?

If the NCAA tournament isn't exciting enough for you, you can bet on the Conrad Black trial. But last I checked you'd be the first.

Dubai sees our Calatrava spire and raises us with the silliest-named building ever, the Pentominium. To paraphrase Jon Stewart, if Saudi Arabia and Las Vegas had a baby, it would be named Dubai. I say forget the Calatrava and build Frank Lloyd Wright's mile-high "Illinois" building, because this architectural aggression cannot stand.

Meanwhile, Wicker Park's Northwest Tower, the coyote-shaped landmark that gave the long-running Around the Coyote arts festival its name and neighborhood's only skyscraper, is at risk of coming down (h/t Beachwood Reporter).

The House of Crosses, an urban folk-art treasure in West Town, may also be doomed, as I learned in the comments section in the Reader's Flickr group (where I found the photo below, by Margaret Nissen). Weird Chicago has a rundown and a podcast with the nephew of the house's creator.

Since the Web has totally destroyed my attention span, instead of making a header and sticking with it, I'll be rotating designs that use photos from YouShoot, the Reader's interactive photo feature (and, perhaps, found art and errata from around the Web, if it strikes my fancy).

The current picture is by Jim Walker; in just a couple years, the flood of Millennium Park pictures has made it well-nigh impossible to take a non-cliched picture that captures the spirit of the park. That's why I love this shot--Walker captures the abstract beauty of Gehry's bandshell with his focus on detail and tone, removing it from its context and treating it as a work in itself.