downtown chicago

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If you haven’t noticed yet, the key to capturing Chicago images is definietly self parking garages. LOL. There’s just so many around and if you just poke your head out a little bit, there are some really interesting compositions you can get. This one was taken from a parking garage off of Kinzie St.

So I went to this parking garage to capture some images of the L train from above (how many times have we heard this story?) and in between time I ended up throwing on my zoom lens onto the camera to try to find interesting compositions. In this particular scene, I really liked how the L train was curving so I waited for someone to walk underneath it. It didn’t take long for these two girls to enter the scene. I particularly like the one wearing the pink coat. I think it stands out so nicely in the urban setting.

In other news, I’m leading another photowalk! If you’re in the DC area on June 1st, I’d love for you to join me at the Tidal Basin for a sunrise photowalk. I’ll be there with the Focus on the Story photo festival as we enjoy a (hopefully) beautiful Saturday morning together. It’s free to join, just click here to register. Meet at the Martin Luther King Jr memorial 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F4.5 at 1/640th sec and ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

 

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When I was looking up different places to take pictures of Chicago at night, the Chicago Theatre came up in so many of my search results. I think if you’re visiting Chicago it’s a must see. But most of the other images I have seen were of cars driving past and getting the light trails from that. I wanted to try something a little different. I saw some other images where you could get an elevated view point, so I thought I would combine the two and hope for something cool.

This was taken after dinner and dessert. We walked over to the sign and I noticed how many people were walking by taking selfies so I thought it would be interesting to try to get a long exposure of that. It also helped that the Chick-fil-a was right there so I was even able to capture people walking out of the fast food restaurant. I think it turned out a little creepy but an interesting take on the landmark.

So if you’re interested in joining me in Chicago in July, we’re actually running a sale on the workshop. Click here for the details and looking forward to seeing you there 🙂 I heard it can get real hot in the summertime which I can’t even imagine at all. It just snowed there again over the weekend!

PS Can I be honest. One of the highlights of my day is when I look at my blog and see people have ‘hearted’ a blog post even if I haven’t shared it on social media. It honestly makes me smile knowing that you just come to my blog just to see it. I can’t tell who does it but I really, really appreciate it! Thank you!

My camera settings for this image is F20 at 1.6 sec and ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

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Hump Dayyyyy

I feel like I’ve been traveling a lot in 2019 so far. And if there’s anything that I’ve learned in these recent travels, it is never put your camera away. I try my best to always keep my camera in hand for those ‘just in case’ moments. I’ve also found that sometimes if my camera is already in my backpack, I may feel a little lazy to take it out to try to capture a moment and end up regretting it. So as a rule, I try to always have my camera ready and available.

Another consequence of always having your camera available is that you start taking random selfies like this. LOL. or even this one…

I’m not always on the lookout for puddes but if I see one, I do like to see if there’s anything interesting in the reflection. This one was taken just around the corner of our hotel. It’s actually the very last image that I captured on the trip and thought it was cool to see the edges of the tall buildings around me. To add a little foreground interest, I included my shoes in the images and at the very last moment threw up a peace sign. Just something fun but ended up giggling when I saw it as I was looking through my images once I arrived home.

But trust me. This is definietly not the last image I have from Chicago. I have so many more that I’m excited to share. PS I’m starting to work on a Chicago photo guide so if you have any questions about anything, feel free to ask. I’ll try my best to answer them in the guide.

Also excited for more travels in the next few months 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F6.3 at 1/100th sec and ISO 250 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

 

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This image was taken right before I captured this one. I was standing at same exact spot when I captured both images. So the image from last week was taken if you’re looking towards the right and this image was taken if you’re looking to the left.

At first it was all the light posts that caught my attention. I love how they were all lined up in a row and I was trying my hardest to try to capture them in the reflection of the building but it wasn’t until a crosswalk sign turned green where I was able to capture this. I love how everything just lines up in a row. I also love how everyone is wearing mostly black. It seemed to work perfectly for this image. Even that little bit of car you see driving across the street is black. Kinda like a “Walking Dead” type scene but not really.

Anyways, my weekend trip to Richmond was so fun. I went with my friend, Albert and it was great because we wanted to do all the same things. Basically just walk around and explore with our cameras. I’ll be sharing more about that trip soon but for now I feel like I’m still going through all these Chicago images. I have so much more that I still want to look through.

My camera settings for this image is F8 at 1/800th sec and ISO 250 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

All photos available for print and licensing >

Just another image from walking around downtown Chicago. For some reason, I ended up next to this parking garage several times. It wasn’t intentional but I thought it was such a cool wall. So the first day we were walking around, kinda close to sunset time and I noticed this row of trees. I loved the way the light was hitting it so I asked Andrew if we could stop to wait for someone to walk past. I don’t think he knew what I was talking about because he was looking around to see what I was seeing but we stopped immediately.

It wasn’t long before this lady with a red jacket walked by. It was perfect. I love that color pop and how it adds so much scale to the trees and wall. It really is scenes like this that makes me excited about street photography. It may seem so simple, but the timing seemed perfect.

As soon as I captured this, we started walking again to our final destination that night, Lou Malnati’s pizzeria. OMG so good!

On another note, I’ll be in Richmond, Virginia this weekend and I’m really looking forward to it. If you didn’t know, I graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a BFA a longggggg time ago and I haven’t been back to the capital city since. I know it’s changed a lot and am really looking forward to seeing all the changes. I definietly want to go check out the campus and all the apartments I used to live in just to see if any of those have changed. It’s going to be crazy and a trip down memory lane FOR SURE!

My camera settings for this image is F6.3 at 1/200th sec and ISO 1000 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

All photos available for print and licensing >

Home from Chicago and it was a fantastic trip. At one point on Saturday night while we were walking back to our hotel for the night, Andrew turned to me and said “How come all of your vacations involve a lot of walking?” LOL I’m pretty sure he was joking but not really. Because it’s true. I think when you walk around a city, you just get to know it better and there’s so much more you get to see when you’re going a little bit slower. I like it better than just driving everywhere or taking public transportation.

But my legs, feet and back are definietly feeling it right now.

This image was taken from a L train station. The light blue building in the center is the Trump International Hotel and Tower and found this to be a cool point of view with buildings framing it. Below me were some train tracks that I was taking pictures of but in between trains coming and going, I was messing around with long exposure on the buildings. I love the way it turned out and I think this is a very accurate depiction of what it feels like after exploring the city for 48 hours. I didn’t think much of it while I was taking the picture but thought it turned out really cool in the end.

Overall, I had a great weekend. I loved walking up and down the riverwalk and finding different angles to photograph the high rise buildings. I also really enjoyed eating deep dish pizza and Italian beef sandwiches. So you can say I’m a big fan of Chicago’s scenery and food 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at .4 seconds and ISO 3200 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens and my 10 stop neutral density filter.