All in Architecture
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Before last night's performance at the Logan Center by Fred Hersch, we walked over to Rockefeller Memorial Chapel on the University of Chicago campus with technical camera and 23mm Rodenstock lens in hand. Would have liked some snow on the ground, but you take what you can get. Turns out, I guessed correctly.
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I headed out to photograph the Board of Trade at the end of LaSalle, but the photograph failed. Too much light pollution from the traffic jam at rush hour. I needed to get the cars blurred, which required a longer exposure, but that meant that the Board of Trade was overexposed. I need to comeback on a Sunday.
Meanwhile, as I was standing on the traffic island, I looked to my right, seeing the lovely blue sky.
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No point in watching all the pre-game nonsense, particularly when it is 32F or thereabouts in February. Out I went. Managed to get down to the Art Institute to see a terrific exhibit of Japanese photography from the Sixties entitled "Provoke"
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The day started out rather temperate, but by 4:00PM, a cold front had moved in, sending temperatures plummeting. Good light often accompanies a change in temperature, as it did today.
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I gave some thought to reducing the amount of water in the foreground--and I could have because I shifted several times as I made multiple exposures--but the reflected colors were so lovely, particularly as doom descends upon us tomorrow.
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The Year 2016 is now resolved, with 2017 totally unresolved. Lots of New Year's resolutions remain unresolved.
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The Arctic Vortex has arrived as the holiday shopping season shifts into high gear. Last Friday night, Jane Byrne Park was a little more crowded, but Michigan Avenue was still hopping last night--with an eight second or so exposure, that is hard to tell--lots of ghosts--but folks are walking by with shopping bags full.
When I left the house today, I was headed to LaSalle Street, just north of the Chicago River, to get make a photograph of the Board of Trade on the south end of LaSalle. Much to my dismay, it isn't lit on Sundays, at least when I was in position. I had to settle for a classic river shot looking east.
Looking south from the Wolf's Point at the fork in the Chicago River. It's November 17th. The water taxis and the tour boats are still cruising. Temperatures hit 75F today, but light snow is forecast for Sunday.
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On the right, sits the vacant hi-rise office building locate at 150 North Riverside, just south of Lake Street on the west bank of the Chicago River. No lights yet, but I expect we will see some shortly in this Goettsch Partners designed project. It sits above the Amtrak railroad tracks leading to Union Station.
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It's never to early to celebrate Christmas and the holidays, unless, of course, you are Victoria Boros Liccione, who becomes distressed when merchants begin to display their holiday wares in November before Thanksgiving.
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This photograph was made from the north end of the Franklin Street bridge, which is just west of the Merchandise Mart at about 5:00PM. It depicts a classic view of the Chicago River, looking east. Visible are Marina City,
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The new Apple store under construction on Michigan Avenue just south of the Tribune Tower. The early morning serenity is deceiving. As this photograph was being made, some 5,000,000 people were descending on downtown for the Chicago Cubs' victory celebration.
Millenium Park on a fall afternoon in October. The light was perfect, casting lovely shadows of the lighting trusses and lamps on the metal skin that gives form to architect Frank Gehry's Jay Pritzker Pavillon.
It's all about the layers that exist in urban settings. Tokyo is known for them, but Chicago also has its share of layers.
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The Chicago Theatre is one of the most photographed buildings in Chicago, but most of the photographs feature the vertical script that spells out Chicago on the 6-story sign attached to the building. Built in 1921, the theatre was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. What many photographers miss is the archway above the marquee, with its elaborate carvings.
While we waited for the return water taxi, we spent some time in Ping Tom Memorial Park. The willows lining the river have grown over the years that we have lived in Chicago.
The visual treat in this neighborhood is the Amtrak vertical life bridge that was built in 1915 (101 years old). It was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad. It doesn't look like it has been painted since then. I had never seen it in the "up" position, but on this trip, I watched it go upwards after a southbound Amtrak train rolled over it. It works just like an elevator.
Most Chicagoans are familiar with the Lyric Opera, but the so-called Lyric Opera House is really the Civic Opera House designed by architectural firm Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, which was also responsible for the design of the Merchandise Mart, the old Post Office, the Wrigley building, the Shedd Aquarium, and Union Station.
Among everyone's favorite buildings in Chicago, Bertrand Goldberg's Marina City still towers over the Chicago River. I will undoubtedly post many photographs of this mid-20th Century gem (designed in 1959, completed in 1964). It was the first post-war residential tower built in the United States in an effort to stop middle class flight from the city to the suburbs, a trend that after 60 years is in full reversal.
The building is known for one colossal engineering mistake. It was originally clad is Carrara marble, but one piece fell off the building and an inspection found cracks in other pieces covering the building. In 1985, the owners tried to alleviate the problem by stainless steel straps to hold the marble in place. That apparently proved to be an unsatisfactory solution. Beginning in 1990, the Carrara marble was replaced with Mount Airy granite at an estimated cost of somewhere around $80 million.
