Nicholas Haggin Photography
Selected views through my lens
Broad Prairie
I guess I’d better admit it: I like color. Bold color. Punchy color. I also like the music of the French composer Olivier Messiaen, which uses instrumental color to define its structure, not merely as decoration. Vulgar? Probably. Kitschy? You could accuse me of that, I guess. I don’t know that I really care, though, when a blue sky streaked with cirrus clouds shows up over a cornfield at the end of the harvest.
Through The Cracks
While waiting for the bus one morning a few years ago I saw this tendril, which was growing out between logs reinforcing the soil on the edge of someone’s lawn. Life will find a way.
Foggy Morning
Dead vegetation at Japan House.
This gazebo was funded by Nick Offerman of Parks and Recreation fame, a U of I alum who studied with Shozo Sato, the founder of Japan House.
A Tale of Two Domes
Earlier this summer we took a 2-week road trip to attend a conference (for me), visit family, and see the sights on the East Coast between Washington and Philadelphia. We also enjoy what I call “ecclesiastical tourism,” that is, looking for old or notable churches in the places we visit. Our trip did not disappoint.
St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Zanesville, OH was built in 1898, a new Romanesque Revival building for a parish founded in 1842. The octagonal dome with its eight angels was quite an impressive sight.
The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore, MD, better known as the Baltimore Basilica, is the first Catholic cathedral built in the United States. Designed by Benajmin Henry Latrobe and built between 1806 and 1821, it witnessed many important events in the history of the Church in America, including the Plenary Councils of Baltimore that gave us the Baltimore Catechism and the Catholic University of America.
Latrobe’s dome features a ring of windows which illuminate the medallion representing the Holy Spirit before the light is filtered down to the nave, giving the interior an open, airy feel.
Leafburst
Let’s face it: backlit sunstar images are overdone, cliché, a shallow effect for a quick burst of emotion behind which there is no deeper meaning…but they’re sure fun to make, as this one was.
Coffee Break
When I came back to work at the University of Illinois, I found that a local businessman was running a coffee shop with branches in the Siebel Center and the Mechanical Engineering Lab. In the spring of 2015 he decided to get out of the coffee business. The shop in MEL is now vacant, but the Siebel location was subsequently occupied by the Einstein Bros. bagel-and-beverage-and-pastry chain, which has set up this gauntlet of coffee and tea canisters for thirsty customers to fill their cups.
Flags of Gold
After a slow start, spring is quite advanced here in central Illinois. This year’s irises are just beginning to bloom, and yellow ones like this have not appeared yet, so I’ll get their forebears from last year to stand in for me while I wait for an opportunity to take some new pictures. 🙂
