The Life Cycle Of A Photographer

This is pretty great.  I am somewhere past "The HDR hole," but I keep falling back into the "Dammit, I suck" valley.

Cool Bicycle-Related Animation

The Cyclotrope from tim Wheatley on Vimeo.


Obviously, this space has been very quiet in the past few months.  Work has been crazy, I've been doing very little photography-wise and I've only recently gotten back to bicycling to work regularly after the bout of deep-winter snowstorms.  (Aside: "thundersnow" is some crazy s%#t!)  Saw this though, and had to pass it along.  Really fun and impressive.

Hope to get back to the blog soon, but I make no promises.  Mostly what I've been wanting to do lately is just curl up with a good book or play with the dog.  I love Chicago, but the winters out here can get pretty tedious.  We are up into the 60s today, though, so hopefully real Spring is right around the corner.

More Holga

Here are a few photos of the Chicago skyline and waterfront.  These are also from the first roll that I shot with the camera.  I think I'm hooked!

Scenes From the Commute

Chicago Loop Parking Garage

My Continuing Descent Into Hipsterdom

You still won't find me sporting a pair of skinny jeans (you're welcome), but my hipster cred continues to accumulate.  A couple of months ago I became the somewhat sheepish owner of a Holga 120N medium-format camera.  For those who don't know, the Holga is a "toy" camera - a cheaply-made, all plastic Chinese camera that shoots 120mm film.  The camera is prone to light leaks, accidental double-exposures and heavy vignetting, but is very popular with art photographers and people looking to get into medium format film photography on the cheap (and, of course, hipsters, although Polaroid still takes pride of place on that score).

I've shot about ten rolls of film with the camera so far and just recently got the first set of developed negatives back from the photo lab.  Below is a shot from the first roll that I put through the camera:

Ira in his usual afternoon napping spot (Holga 120N, Kodak Tri-X 400)

Okay, so yes, it's a pet shot - that's our oldest cat, Ira (named after NPR radio host Ira Glass, of This American Life; yes we are that big of geeks) - but I think it came our pretty great, especially considering it was the first time I used the camera.

I will be posting more shots from this camera soon.  I really could fall in love with medium format.  Those big, frick'n negatives are pretty damn sweet.

No Need To Dream . . .

Fresh-Fallen Snow, Christmas Morning 2010, Chicago (Canon 40D, 17-40mm f/4, color converted)