Scenes from Geist Lake on race day

The Geist Half-Marathon and 5K in Indianapolis and Hamilton County (Ind.) marked its fifth year last Saturday, and I was there. I was invited to photograph the event this year, and I eagerly accepted. 

My primary images were committed to the contracting firm that hired me to take pictures, but I did manage to squeeze off a few shots on a personal memory card in the moments before the start of the race ... and in the boat rides to and from that start line. It was the first time I'd ever been on this lake in a boat.

The rich, bronze-tinged photo leading off today's post was grabbed as the boat I was riding in headed northeast toward Olio Road, the start line in Hamilton County, moments before sunrise on race day, May 19. The view looks northeast. Below, I'm on Olio Road, about 15 minutes later. The sun is just beginning to peek above the trees in the eastern sky, about 15 minutes before the 7 a.m. start of the half-marathon. 

For full gallery of images from this shoot, follow the link in this sentence.

Above and next three below: Estates along the lake, photographed during the boat ride transporting me to the start line at the north end of Geist Lake.

Above and next two below: Easily the most enjoyable moments prior to the half-marathon start were observing these youths, wearing purple shirts emblazoned with "Lawrence Township School Foundation," going through a distinct warm-up routine -- dancing and grooving to the lively hip-hop music piped over the P.A. system to help energize participants. Andre, the tall youth in the front, led the group through a synchronized routine.

 

Above: A look north down Olio Road at the extensive lineup for both the half-marathon, which started at 7 a.m., and the 5K, which began in a series of five waves at 7:30 a.m.

Above: These youths are obviously loosened up for the half-marathon start.

Above and next two below: Shots taken from the Olio Road over Geist, including a very early morning water skier (immediately below). In the second shot below, the splash you see on the far left is the tail end of -- quite literally -- a fish out of the water.

Above and below: Some more homes along the lake, as seen on the boat ride back to the Fall Creek causeway, near the finish line.

 

Above: A boat in front of us as we near the Fall Creek Road causeway on the return trip after the half-marathon and 5K starts. Both 5K and half-marathon participants crossed the finish line a short jog to the right in Geist Lake Marina.

Hamilton County Courthouse: Noblesville, Ind.

Today, I visited Noblesville, Ind., the seat of Hamilton County, which for the past couple decades, has been the fast-growing county in the state. It is home to two of the state's fastest-growing communities as well -- Fishers and Carmel (for you non-Hoosiers, we pronounce the latter "CAR-mull," i.e., accent on the first syllable, not on the last, as they do in California). Fishers and Carmel are just north of the Marion County line, and Marion County is where Indianapolis, the state capital, is located. Noblesville also is growing quickly, but because it's more centrally located in the county (i.e., father north of Indianapolis than Carmel and Fishers), not nearly to the degree that Carmel and Fishers have.

While I was in Noblesville, I had a 20-minute window where I decided to capture some pictures of the Hamilton County courthouse, and because it was such an overcast day, I decided to do so with bracketed shots with the intent to process them afterward with high-dynamic range (HDR) software. I started the shoot on the east quadrant of the courthouse square, and worked my way clockwise from there -- south next, then west and finishing on the north end.

The shoot graphically demonstrated to me the limitations of the wide-angle lens (I used a Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 for this shoot). A lens with a wide range of field is needed to best capture structures close up, but to do that with a normal wide-angle lens -- because of its construction -- means lots of distortion. The only recourse is to stand back -- the farther back you stand using a wide-angle, the less distortion.  But, you get unwanted and expansive foreground and other clutter. On Friday, I elected to see how distorted things would be with closeups; I didn't want the expansive foreground and other clutter. To avoid distortion -- and get structures on the same plane as the camera body when doing closeups -- one needs to use a tilt-shift lens, which professional architectural photographers. Distortion can be a neat effect in many closeups, which is why the wide-angle will always be an important, valuable lens. But when it comes to architecture documentary imagery, tilt-shift lenses are definitely the way to go. 

So here are the courthouse images, leading off with the left side of the west quadrant at the top of this post. Below are the other views, beginning with east, then followed images taken in a clockwise circle around the square, including the separate Museum of History building, which is at the extreme southwest quadrant.

I conclude with the Hamilton County Government and Judicial Building, an annex to the courthouse structure that is on the opposite side of Eighth Street from the courthouse on the west quadrant.

Coxhall Garden: 'An oasis in a sea of homes'

As promised some time ago, I'm coming back to a shoot on Oct. 19, 2010, in Carmel, Ind., a north suburb of Indianapolis that is doing some progressive things of late. (For a summary, see previous post at this link).

Images featured in today's post were taken during the portion of my visit that was at Coxhall Garden, a relatively new park in western Clay Township of Hamilton County named for the couple, Jesse and Beulah Cox, who donated the land to the county for transformation into a park, an "oasis in a sea of homes." It has turned out to be just that; this fast-growing and expansively developed area of Central Indiana needed a place where local folks could go to get away from the craziness.

The park has a striking, limestone classic architecture amphitheater featuring tiered seating, fountains, domes and columns that, in the late afternoon when I was there, cast some marvelous shadows to mix with the built-in lines, angles and other sorts of shapes that are part of the structure, starting with the lead image (top of post) which I took using a Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 wide-angle lens leaning over the top row of tiered seats to get this angle ... a composition that seemed appropriate to complement what I was seeing ... and in tune to the mood that seized me at that moment. 

Backed by a blue sky enriched by a polarizing lens, the composition opportunities were exciting. At one point -- when I was directly under the ornamental entrance passage to the amphitheater seating area and saw the linear, columns and shadow show, I was so jazzed that I just started shooting almost wildly, shot after shot ... click ... click ... click ... almost like what you might see in those stereotypical photo shoot scenes on television.

Here are some frames from that shoot.

 

Above and next two below: Looking west, from the path to the amphitheater, to the carillon bell tower at the west entrance.

Above: On the path leading to the amphitheater.

Above and below: Looking east, from the path leading to the amphitheater, to the carillon bell tower positioned at the park's east entrance. 

Above: A statue of Jesse and Beulah Cox, who had owned and lived on the park property at 2000 W. 116th St. for many years. The couple built their dream house there in 1974, a replica of the Governor's Palace in Williamsburg, Va., before donating it to the county in 1999 to develop as a park upon their deaths. Beulah died shortly after the land was donated; Jesse continued to live in the mansion until his death in 2008.

Above: A memorial to Beulah Cox that appears outside the entrance to the amphitheater.

Above and below: The domed center stage of the amphitheater.

Above and next two images: The ornamental entrance to the amphitheater, where you have full perspective of the late-afternoon sun's effect on the lines and shadows. This facade was the subject of my images near the top of this post. 

Above and below: closeups of the fountains circling the amphitheater's domed center stage.

 

Above: A view of the amphitheater entrance from behind the stage.

Above: Quite a few of the bricks on the walkway around the domed center stage contained engravements with memorials. This was one of those tributes.  

 

Above: A look at the path extending from the amphitheater to the parking lot, with a detail shot of the circular overhead ornamentation immediately below. Two images below is a detail shot of the human figurine at the right of the image above -- a woman carrying a child. 

Above: A look toward the amphitheater through the circular sculpture in the middle of the path as seen several images above. 

 Above and next four images: The carillon bell tower at the park's east entrance.