Tag: Chicago

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Chicago Bean Done Different

The Chicago Bean Seen Differently
The Chicago Bean Seen Differently

I love Chicago.  So much to do and as a photographer, I love wandering the streets doing street photography as we would call it.  Earlier this week I wandered the streets with my son Scott.  We met for breakfast but did a walk about first.  We ended up at the famous Chicago Bean.  Now, this location is iconic and everyone comes here and shoots this massive reflective bean.  I love coming to these places and challenging myself to see differently.  THus the shot above.  If you look and play you can come up with an image that not many others may have.  It helped too that is was early and not too many people were there.  We actually had the bean to ourselves.  Made with a Fuji X-Pro and 18-55mm lens.

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You Gotta Get Up Early

The Bean, Chicago

You have to get up early to do great photography, and that is no different when shooting in the city and trying to make sure tourists don’t ruin your shot.  This is the famous Chicago Bean.  It offers a multitude of image possibilities with all the reflections and such.  Normally during the day there are always hundreds of people with their point and shoots taking shots.  So, get there early when the sun is coming up and have the whole place to your self.

 

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Chicago Bridge

Once again on one of my walk a bouts in Chicago I saw this image on a bridge in .  Carefully lined it up and waited for the person to come into the frame.  Do you like it?  Kind of cool,  It shows a lot about Chicago, old, new and lots of riveted steel and iron.  Taken with a Phase One P65+.  Yes you can do street photography with it.

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Iron City

Bridge and building, Chicago, IL

Chicago is one of my favorite cities to photograph.  The architecture from bridges to buildings is incredible.  I love those cool days of early fall and getting out there with a camera at dawn and shooting.  In this shot I included one of the bridges with a modern skyscraper  to tell a sort of old and new.  Show with a wide angle lens on a P65+.

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Self Portrait In The Bean

The Bean in Chicago, self portrait

I am always looking for something different and when in Chicago a while back I arrived at the infamous bean real early in the morning when no one else was there.  I had the whole place to myself and I got many good images. This was a fun one taken inside the bean where reflections play off each other and it becomes very interesting.  This is my self portrait.

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Always Fun – The Bean

The Bean, Chicago

Chicago is a fun city.  There is always something to shoot.  The challenge is shooting things that everyone else is shooting differently.  So, every time I go to Chicago I play and shoot and especially have fun shooting the Bean which is a highly polished sculpture.  It is highly reflective, seamless and just plain fun to shoot.  This is one of my attempts and I think it works.  If you are a regular follower you have seen other bean images and most likely in the future you’ll see even more on my blog.

 

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The City

Chicago Iron

I love shooting in the city.  Any city will do.  What’s fun is that it is a dynamic environment.  Weather, wind, light, people are always changing it.  I am like a hunter as I am always looking up and down and behind me.  I can see people I want to shoot or a building.  I love coming bak and editing images.  This image is one I like because it is of steel or maybe even old iron and it shows the city in the background.  Kind of symbolizes the whole thing.  The shot has a strong vertical and it balances the buildings in the background.

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Making It Look Different

Chicago Pigeons - Sketcher

One of the things photographers are doing  lot of these days is taking normal pictures and using apps on their iPhones and iPads making them look different.  I will admit I am guilty of this too, but I believe an image needs to be able to work without a lot of special effects and textures and so forth.  Granted there is an occasional image that works well but a good image with good subject, and composition will always win out.  Plus after a while all of this fancy effects becomes contrived and overused.  Today though I am showing an image that I ran through a new app on my MAC.  It was 99 cents and it is called Photo Sketcher and it does some cool stuff.  Above is the page from it and below is the original.  The original is  stung in its own right but the sketcher one works well too.  What do you think?

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Made You Look

Water Tower Place, Chicago

It’s fun to make images that make you stop and look twice.  Something to exercise the mind as it searches for a definition of what it  is seeing.  This image is kind of like that.  What is it?  What do you see?  The answer- it’s shot from the top floor balcony of Water Tower Place in Chicago looking down an an atrium like setting.  Kind of cool isn’t it?

 

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Chicago Building

Building - Chicago, IL

Working for Phase One I host and lead photo workshops all over the world. During our recent workshop PODAS we concentrated on Architecture Photography. We shot a lot of building and this is one of them. I like the composition with foreground as well as the reflection. It was shot with an IQ180 (80  megapixel) camera and perspective was corrected in Capture One. Then I played a bit with the image on the iPad before publishing here.