McLean County Tournament concludes for 2019

We shot 12 games in 6 days - kind of a condensed week due to the weather here in McLean County - at the 2019 108th version of the McLean County Tournament.  The tournament is still the longest running basketball tournament in Illinois.

This year, the Eureka Hornets beat out El Paso Titans for the girls title and GCMS (Gibson City Melvin Sibley) Falcons beat out the El Paso Titan boys in a thriller that will be remembered for many years for the boys title.

Click to view all the images from the games we covered.

108th McLean County Tournament gets underway at EP-G Monday 1-21-2019

The 108th McLean County Tournament kicked off a couple days late this year due to the weather.  The original brackets and places of play are fairly skewed.  The actual brackets being used are located at www.hoiconference.com if you need to find them.

Alan Look Photography is again covering as much of this historic basketball tournament as possible.  Their work can be found at McLean County Tournament photos and galleries. There should be plenty of images to view and purchase.

Normal West opens 2014 season with a win over Belleville West

Friday night, August 29th, The Normal West Wildcats opened their 2014 season against a new opponent - the Belleville West Maroons.  After storming the football field through a tunnel of band members and cheerleaders (resulting in one media casualty from a local television station) the Wildcats began their attack on the Maroons.  One down, 8 more to go for the Wildcats!

Bloomington - Normal's best look in Sports Action Photography.  Check out Best Look Magazine each quarter for more images and stories.



20140829 Belleville West Maroons at Normal West Wildcats football photos - Images by Alan Look

 - Chimper -

2015 NFL possible draftees that played in Bloomington Normal

Normally (no pun intended) natives and transplants alike in Bloomington Normal think that not much interesting at all happens here.  I'm in that group some of the time, but truth is I'm usually just not looking hard enough.  When I heard that IWU product John Worley made the top 20 on the NFL draft prospect list for linebackers I decided it was time to check out the whole list.  I usually do it every year, but had just been putting it off.  I was surprised when I found what seemed like a pretty long list.  Sifting through the list by university name of games I covered, I found only one or two of them that didn't have a name on the list.  I think the most was 9.

So, who played in Bloomington - Normal that may get drafted?  I didn't keep the whole list, but you can see the 21 that I have images of in the slideshow below.



2015 NFL Draft Prospects photos - Images by Alan Look

See ya on the sidelines!
 - Chimper -

If you've read my Bio

This blog gets viewed by a lot of people world wide.  Most just stumble across it looking for, believe it or not, examples of how to make a Do It Yourself bandelero camera strap or a fresnel magnifier for a flash.  Some come here to take a look to see what sporting and other events I've recently shot.  All that is great, but how many of you have clicked on the link to my archive website and read my bio?  I haven't looked at the stats for that page, but I'm guessing that it isn't high.  Really, who really cares?  I'm the same way.  Unless I'm find something really interesting on a website, I'm not going to just click on a bio link to find out about the person.  Our world just works that way these days.

Let me bring you in closer a little.  Part of my bio explains that I like photography because I like to show things that we see every day, but really don't take the time to look at.  This post will explore a little of that.

Nature is the subject of lots of macro or close up photography.  There are a million great shots of bugs online where you can see the matix of the eyes of small creatures making those eyes look a lot like miniature window screens.  I guess in a way they are!  I prefer plants.

This shot of a pink hibiscus bloom shows the texture and waviness of the petals and also the color of the stamen.  If you look real closely you can even see the small hair like protrusions that (sorry if I'm wrong, I'm not a plant expert) catch or release pollen.

This shot of foxtail grass was taken in broad daylight.  It was darkened just slightly, but the background was indeed almost this black right out of the camera.  It's a technique that involves using a flash to light the object an not the background and overpower the ambient light by 4 to 6 f-stops (don't worry about the technical stuff, if you really want to know there are a lot of tutorials available on the web to explain it.  What I really like about the image is it shows the very delicate splines on the grass, the seeds clinging to the shaft and also the imperfections that exist in nature.

One Easter season, I came home to find a bowl of Cadbury chocolate eggs on the counter.  How colorful.  It wasn't until I decided to shoot a couple close ups that I noticed that a very large percentage of them were cracked!  I'd been seeing this for a lot of years, but it just never registered.  The colors, cracks, speckles just seem to light up the place.

I've been to Colorado Springs a couple of times and a visit to the Air Force Academy and especially the chapel is always a thrill.  Even if you've never been there in person, you have no doubt seen photos of it.  It's aircraft aluminum spires against the blue skies of the Rockies will always leave a mark.  Viewing it close up and you can see the texture of the metal and also the golden colors coming through the windows in between.

Smoke.  Occasionally we find a smoke that gives us a thrill.  For me, it's walking outside in the fall or winter and smelling a wood burning fireplace that someone has burning.  Other smokes, well most smokes just kind of turn us off. Have you ever stared at smoke in the air?  It has its own beauty.  The image below was smoke from an incense cone.  It's been digitally altered so that you can see the delicate shifts of the density of the columns.  It can kind of feather off and then be right back just as thick as it was before.  It also makes for some great original art.  Like a snowflake, there are only similars.

The last image I have to show with this post is a close up of a viola and its bow. Look closely and you will see some rosin from the bow lying on the top of the instrument.  You can also see the perfectness and the imperfectness in the finish, the wraps with the strings that help hold them on and hold them tight.  I'm always drawn to the Mother of Pearl inlay in the bow handle.  Just looking at the image takes one to a place where you can almost hear the music.

I'll have to ask you to pardon the watermarks on the image and the small nature in which they are posted.  The images are copyrighted and registered.  Please feel free to link to this post, but please respect the copyright.

All the images can be viewed in a larger format on my archive website at Alan Look Photography.

Well, I hope you at least learned that I do more than Sports Photography and journalism. 

Till next time!

 - Chimper.

  

Ridgeview defeats Heyworth on Colfax gridiron

The Ridgeview Mustangs hosted and defeated the Heyworth Hornets on Friday Septemeber 7th, 2012 at Colfax IL by a score of 54 - 0.

Check out the images in Alan Look Photography's gallery.

Not spending enough time on the web?  Check out the current issue of Best Look Magazine.