Concrete Jungle

I am trying to bring my camera with me everywhere I go in an attempt to practice photographing anything and everything.  Good light, bad light, ugly unflattering light, boring objects, interesting landscapes-- you name it and you will probably find it on my camera right now. I came to the conclusion yesterday that I don't walk around and photograph the loop nearly enough.  Downtown Chicago is famously photogenic and for whatever reason (lazy) I just never venture south to photograph its beautiful skyscrapers, parks, and lakefront (polar vortex).

As my trigger finger grew numb and my face burned from the wind, I realized that the city, in all of its urban glory, is extremely difficult to photograph.  This may seem ridiculous because of the sheer volume of people, places, and "things" to photograph, but there lies the challenge.  HOW do you translate the magnificence of the huge looming buildings, the hustle and bustle of the city savvy pedestrians, or the serenity of Grant Park into photograph form?  I can't even tell you how many times I found an awesome building, park, or statue to photograph, and as soon as I looked through the viewfinder on my camera I realized that the image I was about to capture looked nothing like the real life object in front of me.  Ugh.

Looking at the pictures, I found a lot of them just falling flat.  Bleh.  Then, as my snot hardened to my face, I decided I needed an entirely new approach.  There are a million pictures of the Sears Tower, so I needed to find details to make my photograph look original and interesting.  An "L" train is no beauty, but photographed with its mirror image in the store window across from it makes the "L" train an interesting photograph.

Fun fact about the Congress Hotel: It was built over one hundred years ago to accommodate guests for the World's Fair, and Al Capone was rumored to have lived there.  He is one of the ghosts guests have reported seeing.  Also, stay away from room 441.  It is said that security is called there more than any other room in the hotel, AND there is a room on the 12th floor that is so terrifying it is bolted shut from the outside.

But I digress.

I should really be making the tourism commercials for Chicago.