ANGELA B. PAN

In my opinion, one of my more successful photo trips of the year was when I went to Chicago in March. I must admit, I was a little scared to go because I thought it would be too cold to walk around. But after the wind settled down after the first 1.5 days we were there, it really wasn’t bad at all. I say that it was a successful photo trip because I came back with so many images I loved from that trip.

One of the highlights was definitely visiting Cloud Gate or the Chicago Bean. We actually ended up going twice. One time on a Saturday afternoon which was so packed and I don’t recommend at all. But the second time was on a Sunday morning around sunrise and it was so much more manageable. Yes, there were other people there but it was definitely not crowded like it was on a Saturday afternoon.

Visiting that Sunday morning was great because I had many opportunities to photograph Cloud Gate with no one in the frame, but I also tried some creative compositions to crop people out. In this image, I focused mainly on Cloud Gate where it’s barely recognizable. All you see are the reflections from the surrounding buildings.

My camera settings for this image are F7.1 at 1/100th sec and ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm.

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.