289/365
September 04, 2010
Chicago, IL
Today. The Chicago Board of Trade.
Chicago Board of Trade.
288/365
September 03, 2010
Chicago, IL
Today. I am lucky to get myself out of bed once a week to catch the sunrise. Today's shot was taken one of those early mornings, unfortunately the rain and overcast skies ruined my chance at catching the good light. One thing I have come to notice about this city is that it is most photogenic at sunrise since the lake is towards the east. I have yet to find a great place to catch the sunset in Chicago, and if anyone knows of somewhere that I am missing I would love to hear it.
The Skyline from North Ave. Beach.
287/365
September 02, 2010
Chicago, IL
Today. I am proud of today's shot, not necessarily for the final result, but for the way I executed my initial vision for this photo. First of all, I had to pay the train fare just to get on this platform, so I knew I couldn't come back empty handed. Second, upon arriving up at the platform, I knew I wanted to get a shot of a moving train. My plan was to get the frame I wanted, fire off my standard 3 exposures without the presence of a train. Then, without moving the tripod, wait for a train to come by and take a picture of the scene with the train properly exposed and in motion. Then, I would produce the HDR without the train, and finally mask the train into the scene in photoshop. Rarely when I have a contrived plan like this, does it end up working out exactly as planned, but that was not the case here, and that is exactly how I processed this photo.
Also, this shot is for Jim, aka wowphotoshdr. Jim correctly guessed the number of floors in 77/365 so I told him I would capture any shot of his choosing, and he asked for a train shot. Well, better late than never, 210 days later, Jim, here is your shot!
The Quincy L stop.
286/365
September 01, 2010
Chicago, IL
Today. This image was captured last night on the south side of Chicago. I was actually looking for a cool basketball court I heard some good things about. I was hoping for a nice blue hour shot or two, but it took me longer than expected to find the court and by the time I did the good light was gone. I have found night photography, as opposed to blue hour, to be an extremely tough time to capture quality images, even with a tripod. With low ISO settings the exposures end up taking so long that the lights create these sunbursts that aren't always easy on the eye. Still, nothing is worse than coming home empty handed, so I settled on this shot of the Super Deal Liquor Store.
Super Deal Liquor Store near State St. and 18th St.
285/365
August 31, 2010
Lake Geneva, WI
Today. Today's shot is a bit different than usual, and definitely not HDR. Over the weekend I had a chance to get a few shots at my cousins wedding. The shot below is of my cousin Chris, and my sister Ashley. Although this is not my specialty, I had some fun dressing this one up in photoshop. Here is everything I did to it, and I included the original below for comparison:
-Smoothed out the faces with a gaussian blur layer
-Added a motion blue (radius 100) to the picture, then masked out the dancers
-Desaturated the image using a channel mixer layer, then masked out the dancers
283/365
August 29, 2010
Chicago, IL
Today. The heads at the Merchandise Mart.
The Heads at the Merchandise Mart
282/365
August 28, 2010
Chicago, IL
Today. During my attempt to capture some of the tall ships at navy pier during sunrise, this is probably the best shot I came up with.
Lake Shore Path at Sunrise.
281/365
August 27, 2010
Chicago, IL
Today. I had the fortunate opportunity to cruise around the loop yesterday afternoon, the clouds were outstanding and this is one of the cooler captures that I made.
280/365
August 26, 2010
Chicago, IL
Today. Not sure what these box thingees are for but they looked cool for a photograph.
Newspaper stands near the corner of Dearborn and Goethe street.
