Welcome
Welcome to my first attempt to make a magazine out of my photographs. My name is Francisco Montes, I was born in Havana, Cuba and have lived in Spain and the United States of America. I currently live in a suburb of Chicago with my wife. I am a graphic designer and have had my own business, Laser Art Graphics, for almost thirty years.
Although I don’t know much about the technique of photography, I continue to learn. My main interest is to capture the moment I am living and then remember and revive it when I share those moments with others.
Not all the pictures I take are spectacular, but in each one of them there is a memory, a feeling, a lived moment.
I would like this magazine that you have in your hands today to be a project that I could do perhaps quarterly with the idea of putting down on paper and on social media the most interesting photographs that I capture during the year, and that otherwise would be kept in a drawer or in a computer archive. If you have any comments write to me at fmontes@laserartgraphics.com, they will always be greatly appreciated.
My wish is that you can enjoy looking at and reading the content of these pages.
Winter
I think winter is a season that has its charm, but here where I live, in the Chicago area, the winter is very, very long. For me as a photographer, winter brings many interesting opportunities to take pictures, but there are times when I don’t find anything that catches my eye to photograph. To all this, this year has added something that has limited us much more to go out and photograph or move to a little more distant places, and that is the global Covid-19 pandemic. We hope that all this will pass and that new doors will soon open for us, photographically speaking.
Sunrise
Sometimes it pays to get out early to shovel the snow that has fallen during the night. This happened one cold February morning, while shoveling the snow I could see how timidly the sun was trying to peek into the horizon, I immediately thought I would not be able to see it for long, so I quickly went in search of my camera. Indeed, after taking this picture the sun disappeared among the clouds again. Thank God for that beautiful sunrise.
In my “Backyard”
Images not literally taken in my backyard but made in places that are relatively close to where I live. Many of these images are common details that I find in the places where I walk.
Fabian Windmill
The Fabyan Windmill is an authentic, working Dutch windmill dating from the 1850s located in Geneva, Illinois, just north of Batavia, Illinois, off Illinois Route 25. The five-story wooden smock mill with a stage, which stands 68 feet (21 m) tall, sits upon the onetime estate of Colonel George Fabyan, but is now part of the Kane County Forest Preserve District.
In 1979, the windmill was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Dutch Mill. The following year, the windmill was selected to be on a U.S. postage stamp, as part of a series of five windmills in a stamp booklet called “Windmills USA.”
Before & After
I think that all of us who do photography or graphic design like to play a little with Photoshop, it’s interesting to see how we can add color, remove small objects or blemishes that distract our eyes or add new elements that were not there.
This is a picture of the mushrooms commonly called “puffball”, below I copy something I found about these fungus:
Lycoperdon perlatum (Common puffball) is a fungus of the order Agaricales. The fungus is white and as it reaches maturity it turns brown. When it has this color, if it is squeezed it releases a kind of powder of the same color. When it matures it becomes brown, and a hole at the top opens to release spores in an explosion when the body is compressed by touch or raindrops fall. It can be found in coniferous and deciduous forests in summer, autumn and spring.
The first photo shows the original (before) as I captured it with my camera and the second photo (after) shows the effect of the smoke coming out of the fungus. I’m pretty sure that it won’t be easy to take a picture of these fungus at the moment they release the smoke.
The Princess
Celebrating the 10th Anniversary
This year I’m celebrating the 10th Anniversary of taking pictures for Overshadowed Theatrical Productions. It was in the Fall of 2010 with the production of Shadowlands that I started doing this. On my website there are over 13,000 photos of the different productions and events that OTP has done. I thank the director, Ms. Reba Hervas for the opportunity she has given me through all this time to do this work. I really enjoy taking these photos and each production is a challenge to do a better job. OTP is a fantastic community theatre where each production has an excellent message for each person who attends, from children to adults. If you want to know more about it, visit their website: www.overshadowed.org
Experience Family Friendly Theater Close to Home.
Credits:
©Francisco Montes Photography