Cityscape Chicago: A Timelapse of Chicago in 30,000 Photographs by Eric Hines

Cityscape Chicago from Eric Hines on Vimeo.

Filmmaker Eric Hines does a phenomenal job of making us look good here in the windy city with his most recent timelapse, Cityscape Chicago. The clip consists of over 30,000 still photographs taken between July and October of this year primarily around the bustling downtown areas including the financial district, Navy pier, Wacker drive and the lakefront.

Defrosting a Building: Otherworldly Icescapes Inside a Historic Chicago Cold Storage Facility

For nine decades Fulton Market Cold Storage Company operated in Chicago’s meatpacking district with a full ten stories of freezing storage situated close to major railways. Last summer the company decided it was time to start fresh in a state-of-the-art facility outside of Chicago, so the building was sold to SRAM, a bike component manufacturer who will use the space for its global headquarters. Architects Perkins + Will were hired to help convert the ice-encrusted space into a new, modernized office building and were also tasked with the most epic refrigerator defrost in history. Luckily photographer Gary Jensen was asked to snap some incredible photos prior to the thawing which was actually caught on video (sorry no embed). See more photos on his website. (via gapers block)

UPDATE: I’ve been asked to clarify that the building owner is technically Sterling Bay and the architect of the conversion is Hartshorne and Plunkard. SRAM is a potential tenant in the building and Perkins & Will is their architect.

Animated Lake Michigan Ice Floes Captured by Dave Gorum

Even after living here for 14 years I’m always struck by the juxtaposition of Chicago’s towering steel skyline against the brutal Midwest winter as it transforms the lakefront into an arctic landscape. Dave Gorum, co-founder and creative director over at Carbonmade, went out last week and shot some footage of the densely packed ice chunks as they sloshed around in Lake Michigan off Lake Shore Drive and then converted them into these great gifs. You can see more over on his Tumblr. (via tumblr radar)

Fire and Ice: The Frozen Aftermath of a Chicago Warehouse Fire

Robert R Gigliotti

David Schalliol

David Schalliol

David Schalliol

David Schalliol

David Schalliol

Robert R Gigliotti

Robert R Gigliotti

Darek Szupina

Darek Szupina

It seems like just a few days ago Chicago had huge ice news, and now this. For the past few weeks things have been pretty darned frigid here in the windy city with temperatures dropping down to the single digits, and just when we couldn’t take it anymore things started to warm up, in a massive-abandoned-warehouse-bursting-into-flames sort of way. Nearly 200 firefighters were on the scene in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood to battle the blaze and incredibly nobody was injured. Temperatures were so low during the fire that water sprayed on the building froze almost instantly leaving behind a spectacularly beautiful ice-encrusted wonderland. PhotographersRobert R. Gigliotti, David Schalliol, and Darek Szupina stopped by yesterday and snapped these extraordinary photos. You can see much more over on the Chicago Tribune.

Fire & Ice: A Walk Inside an Ice Cave Next to the Mutnovsky Volcano in Northern Russia

This amazing shot was captured last year by photographer Denis Budkov in an ice cave near the Mutnovsky volcano in an area of northern Russia. Known for an abundance of precipitation the area is often covered in several meters of snow and ice that cover mountain streams like this creating vast caves that look like something out of a science fiction movie. This particular cave was nearly 300m (980 ft.) long and several photographers in Budkov’s group also snapped a few amazing shots. The photographer also captured this jaw-dropping photo of some tourists in front of a volcanic explosion earlier this year. The power of depth of field, right? (via Russia Travel Blog)

Aerial Photographs of Tulip Fields in the Netherlands by Normann Szkop

Abstract rainbows of color fill the landscape in these beautiful photos by French photographer Normann Szkop(nsfw-ish) who hopped in a Cesna with pilot Claython Pender to soar above the tulip fields in Anna Paulowna, a town in North Holland. Collectively, the millions of neatly planted flowers create sprawling patterns and designs that tourists flock to witness with their own eyes every season. See the entire 100+ photograph set over on Flickr. (via twisted sifter)

Paper Landscape Illustrated by Eiko Ojala

It’s hard to visit an art or design blog these days without spotting the illustration work of Estonian artist Eiko Ojala, his Naked series is a great place to get started. The artist works digitally without the aid of 3D software where he draws everything by hand to create landscapes, figures and portraits that look as if they’ve been cut from paper. Most critical are the placement of shadows which Ojala also draws by hand, though via email he admits the complexity occasionally requires the use of photographed shadows which he then incorporates into the illustrations. His latest work is this beautiful Vertical Landscape which is easily one of his most accomplished pieces and I think bodes well for this young illustrator’s career. Wouldn’t you love to see this in motion? (via behance)