fourpointedstar

One of my favorite things to do in the winter in Chicago is to visit one of the conservatories to see the plants and blossoms. The splash of color does wonders to invigorate my spirit.
But then I tend to create monochrome images out of my trips because I love the textures.

In today’s language, this house belongs to a one-percent-er, but I have a hard time feeling jealous of them. After all, if I had millions (or billions), I’d want a home in that exact spot as well.

I struggled with editing this image. I love the composition, but getting the dark and light not too dark and not too light was a challenge; and I still don’t think I’ve got it right. The light parts just aren’t light enough, and I’ve always struggled with getting monochrome images to have nice lighter parts of the image without having just a texture-less white space. Each photograph teaches us a lesson and often that lesson is “you have a lot more to learn.”

Unlike most of Frank Ghery’s most famous buildings, the Museum of Pop Culture is not simply shades of shimmering silver. The building has 5 or 6 unique segments in different colors, each segment with his signature curves and waves. Shadows and reflections wandered across each curve and surface, combining to form a lasting smile across my face.

Ghery’s architectural works stand out in any skyline. The multiple colors, textures, and waves on the Museum of Pop Culture exhibit a wonderful feast of the eyes. While many of his buildings and designs are similar to the Pritzker Pavilion here in Chicago – mostly uniform in color – the Seattle design has multiple treatments and colors for the sheet metal. As we walked around the exterior, I found dozens and perhaps hundreds of potential abstracts, and after editing, here are a few that stood out as spectacular.

As you walk away from the Seattle Space Needle, you’re treated to the chrome and copper variations in the anodized metal. The waves and variations reminded me of a patchwork quilt that has been tossed on the couch; almost as if the wind had blown the building into that particular spot in Seattle’s downtown.

I believe that Kristen has attended three of our Elgin photo walks; she has a great eye and great ideas.  She originally lined this photo up and spent her time capturing the scene with the Water Tower centered – and during that time, a dozen vehicles passed by interrupting her photos.  Then when I took my turn with the same location, I had to wait for several minutes to get my first car for the light trails that I wanted to capture.  I finally did capture an ambulance on Michigan Avenue (in the back), and three vehicles on Tower Court in the foreground.

I wonder if the Allerton Hotel felt the eerie presence of the observation deck on that cold and foggy night. The top of the John Hancock Tower almost disappears into the fog and mist leaving the blue and white lights as the only reminder of the dark obelisk.

I enjoy the rotating art displays in the courtyard between the Tribune Tower and the Apple Store on Michigan Avenue. Seeing “hope” in such a central point of the city is a wonderful reminder of something that we have to work at, to hope for a better future.
And of course, I had to shoot some light trails on any walk through Chicago!

On a previous photo walk (which was also rainy), Arnaldo took a few photos of reflections in the water; and as I waited for the December photo walk to begin, I noticed this perfect reflection. I considered asking someone to step in the puddle, but decided that the Wrigley and InterContinental buildings were a great composition.

When you go on vacation there are typically photos that you know about before hand, but this photo, I don’t think I could have anticipated even if someone had mentioned it before our trip.
If you stand on the loading platform for the Bainbridge Ferry you can see this one tree that is missing in the treelike along Wing Point. But the windows along the platform are highly reflective; all of them except for the one window that allows you to line up the Space Needle with the empty spot in the treeline.

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We took a sunset boat ride out into Elliot Bay on our second to last day in Seattle. The colors in the sky were spectacular, and they mixed so well in with the colors on Pier 57. I hadn’t brought my wider lens, so I’m a bit sad that it’s so tight to the edges, but I love the colors!

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This might be my most serendipitous shot from our Seattle trip in October. Sarah and I were walking back to our VRBO that evening; Sarah wanted to look at a chocolate shop, but as we passed Union Street, the moon caught my eye. My feet were tired and I didn’t have my tripod with me, so this was taken with my Sony propped on top of a circular railing over the 3 story drop onto Post Alley. I probably took more than a dozen photos in my attempt to capture the scene; the ferris wheel would stop rotating, someone else would bump the railing, or I wasn’t standing perfectly still … but in the end I captured this 4 second exposure and only later discovered that it included Venus!

…view older images with the thumbnails below…