A Weekend in Chicago

I never really liked Chicago. It always seemed like kind of a pain in the ass, to be honest. Some friends of mine recently moved there and asked me to house/cat sit for them while they were traveling. While I was excited to see them, I didn't have a great feeling about spending a long weekend there. But then...

I decided to take the train instead of driving. The traffic, the tolls, the parking, all of it didn't seem appealing to me. This turned out to be the idea that changed my whole attitude about the city. The Amtrak took me right downtown where I met my friend. Then we took the L, which was an easy ride that took us within blocks of his house.

I ended up riding the L everywhere over the course of the weekend and, to my surprise, I sort of fell in love with the city. Here's how it happened:

An on again, off again rain all afternoon produced this rainbow over the skyline as we walked through the West Loop.

I'm a big fan of dragging my shutter to capture motion in photos. I couldn't resist this one while we were waiting for the train. The leading lines of the train along with the slow shutter showing it speeding by while the conversation between these two guys was totally unaffected by it made for a cool moment, I thought.

This one was the result of the kind of act-on-instinct reaction that I wish I had all the time. We were getting off the train and the leading line caught my eye. Then the tower sticking up through the low-hanging cloud. I quickly took a step to get the people out of my frame and clicked the shutter. No thinking about it, just reflex to a feeling I got when I saw the line. Normally I stand there and think about it until I miss the moment.

I really like this shot of my friend Jason. I wish I could say that I intended to take it, but it was an accident. I was actually trying to take a photo of a guy in a coffee shop window just off Jason's shoulder, but the guy noticed me and looked pissed off about it. To make it seem like I wasn't trying to photograph that guy, I pretended to be fiddling with my camera and then turned slightly to take this one of Jason. It all worked out. That dude wasn't pissed and I got a good shot of Jason with some motion in it that gives the scene some life. Everybody wins.

We got off the train a few stops before Jason's normal stop so he could show me around his neighborhood. The rainbow came back in full force just as we were getting to this corner.

The next day Jason was off to Los Angeles and I hopped on the train and headed downtown to see what I could find. I spotted the Aqua building from far away and ended up walking all the way around it to find a way to capture it. I like the way the circular concrete structure frames it from this spot.

I made my way to the riverwalk and found some interesting scenes there. This is the Wrigley Building. It's a cool building, but I liked the way the light was hitting the Michigan Avenue sign on the side of the bridge and the tour boat on the other side of it.

The Googler tells me that this one is called the Jewelers Building. I spent a bit of time trying to figure out how to frame it. The angled line of the deep shadowed bridge and the tree creating a sub-frame worked.

Marina City is a very iconic Chicago landmark, so you sort of have to take a photo of it, right? Same trick as in a few of the photos before, but the line of the bridge created some interest and helped frame it well.

I thought I was so clever when I found the spot that I took these next two shots in. I even walked down the street and waited at the Starbucks across from the Art Institute until it started to get dark out to get these two in the way that I wanted. Then later that night after I got home I learned that this spot is in every single one of the "where to get great photos in Chicago" articles and videos, and EVERYONE has taken this shot too. Whatever, I still like them.

The straight-on symmetry of the shot before this one works, but I like the motion of the train in this one a little better. You can't really see them in my photo, but there were some ominous heavy rain clouds in the sky and the streets were strangely empty at that moment. I had a whole Station Eleven scene in my head. Maybe I was just overly influenced by the unusual amount of news I had been watching.

The old slow the shutter way down, find something stable to rest your camera on, and wait for the bus to pass an iconic landmark trick. Works every time.

Oddly, everyone was on the other side of the train platform which let me get this late night shot that checks off a bunch of "composition tools." It's got depth, patterns, and leading lines. I know, I know those are things that are supposed to support your subject, not be the subject.

I missed my train back to Milwaukee and spent a ridiculous amount of time in Union Station waiting for the next one. I ended up making good use of the time. Abstract photography isn't usually something I think about when I'm out with my camera. But the skylight in the train station made a frame-filling pattern, so I took this one. I find it interesting and hard to look at all at the same time.

This woman seemed to levitate through the door.

With the idea of patterns in my head and a few more hours to kill in the train station, I started noticing things that I normally wouldn't. This was the heat vent on one of the walls. The detail in it is impressive for a heat vent.

Another slow shutter shot that gave some life to the scene right before I got on my train to head home. Thanks for the incredible weekend, Chicago!