Chicago's Eye

Chicago has some interesting institution art. Here's one of the ones we see just a few blocks from the newsroom. I can't decide what to think about Chicago's Eyeball.

Photo of the Day: Murphy's lunch

That's a Big Gulp of Gatorade and Cheez-its. How j-students do lunch.

Photo of the Day: Sunrise at Foster

Had to catch a 6:19 a.m. train to Chicago this morning. Very early. But the sunrise was pretty.

Photo of the Day: A Commuter's Life

Happy first day of classes! (That's Chicago underneath the fog in the back)

Photo of the Day: Zakim from the car

It's a symbol of my city. It's the cut-away shot TV uses during games in Boston. It's (one) entry way into the Walking City. And it's what we in the Burrow refer to as Mom's Bridge.

Camera fiend

Some of my finds when packing ...

It started with the Polaroid instant in third grade. None of the photos I took with that have survived but I'm confident saying they were terrible. But I loved taking them, picking something out and carefully, studiously taking a picture. Even if it never ever looked the way I wanted it to.

Then I hijacked mom's Kodak (bottom right) in fifth. She bought it a day before we left for Disney. She's very good at learning on the fly. And was adamant about no kids touching her new camera. Months later, I finally got my hands on it and spent an entire basketball tournament playing with the settings and features. This was the early days of consumer digital cameras so there wasn't too much I could do but that was it for me. I was sold. It was the beginning of a love affair with cameras.

It was another seven years before I got my own digital camera. (In the interim, there were many, many one-time use cameras.) My Kodak and I ventured to London and Paris where it made me look like a decent photographer. Granted, it's really, really hard to take a bad picture of Sacre Coeur.

The one photo class I got to take required a film camera and I was unbelievably nervous about the switch. How was I supposed to know if I got the picture if I can't check it immediately? What do you mean there's no flash? Manual focus?! But I really loved my Nikon film one. I had never felt as legit (as a photographer) as I did using that one. It was a semester of long nights, endless amounts of film and half my wardrobe smelling of developer. In the end, I think I got the hang of it.

There are a few others that aren't here but still important. Mom upgraded to a digital, which I hijacked again when we went to San Diego. A point-and-shoot which has seen better days, but is still going strong. Two video cameras from when Chris was involved in theater.

And of course, my newest, my Canon Rebel T2i. Which I am adamant about no one else touching.