One Day in Chicago: Or How to Freeze Your Lens off in Beautiful Chitown

  My wife and I recently traveled to Chicago for a two-night stay, and I had one day to see the city for the first time. While she busied herself with an exam or something, I took an architectural boat tour of the Windy City. In all fairness, my wife was taking her exam to become board certified as a clinical neuropsychologist. Isn't that adorable? For the record, she passed with flying colors. Sincere congratulations to her and our friend who also took the 3-hour oral exam. To start off my day, I took a quick taxi ride to the dock to catch my boat.......the incorrect dock. Always confirm which company your are touring with before heading out. I apparently went with http://caf.architecture.org. After a brisk walk to the correct dock, I grabbed an aisle seat near the rear of the boat. I always take an aisle seat, as I know I'll be jumping up and bumping people with my camera bag. I am a nuisance. A young lady asked if I could switch seats with her grandmother, so the two could sit together. I was a little reluctant, but eventually caved. Expecting a frail woman with a cane to hobble over, her grandmother approached with the dexterity of a woman half her age. I joked to some other passengers that I wanted my seat back. Never fall for the old "may my grandmother and I sit together?" scam in Second City.
  So with only 3 hours to see the Big Onion, I definitely recommend taking the architectural tour. Our guide knew every story behind every building. As for the photography, I obviously did not use a tripod, and never put on my strobe or bracketed for the exterior shots. I shot by the seat of my pants, and could only wait for the boat to take me to the next spot. I used my 24-105 for the entire boat tour (though I would employ my 17-35 the next morning in Millennium Park). Going wide for some of the cityscapes of course left me with some keystoning and chromatic aberration, which I corrected for in Lightroom and Photoshop.
   With our luggage in hand, we took a quick taxi ride to Millennium Park the following morning to get my last taste of Paris on the Prairie. If you've never been there, I suggest arriving before 9 o'clock on a Sunday morning. At that time, most of the tourist riff-raff are still bundled up or eating breakfast. I spotted the iconic Cloud Fountain through the trees along the steps leading to Gehry's Jap Pritzker's Pavillion, and lept over with excitement. It's not often I leave my camera bag with my wife, but seeing that there were no tourists as of yet, I seized the opportunity. The shot of the end of the silvery bean was taken from this vantage point. I shot it with my 24-105 at 24 mm, 1/200th at f/11. While the wide angle would also assist, I went with an f/11 to get the reflection in focus as well as the bean itself. The bean profile image was shot at 1/160th, f/11 at 92mm to isolate the cloud and building from the street and tourists.

    We then moved along to Gehry's Pavillion, just a stone's throw to your 4 o'clock. Because I was immediately asked to get off the grass, I had to go wide, but liked the city vista and crossing bars. From this location, the Pritzker appears to be a dust cloud from the launching Aon Center...in my simple mind. After needlessly crossing a bridge on the southeast corner of the park, we made it to the Crown Fountain. If any of my reader(s) make it to the park in the near future, please tell the security guard at this bridge that I understand that I'm not allowed to use my tripod on the bridge. She gave me a lot of attitude, and clearly does not enjoy her job.

 For my shot of the Crown Fountain, I was shot at 1/640th at f/4. A second copy of her face in Screen mode was used in Photoshop to brighten things up. Had I shot straight-on, I would have had the sun directly in my lens, and they tell me that's a bad idea. 

    So that wraps up our trip to That Toddling Town. I realize there was not much how-to in this episode, but  I guess I just wanted to share my brief adventure.......and the interwebs continue to push me to publish. Until next time.................