A couple months ago Michael Muraz and I led a 2.5 day workshop in Chicago. We had incredible weather which made for a really great weekend. We started Friday afternoon with some abstracts of the Studio Gang designed pavilion on Lincoln Park’s south pond. This has long been one of my favorite locations in Chicago to photograph and take in the view of the city.


The light was amazing that evening!

After spending a little over an hour at the pavilion we walked over to North Avenue Beach with a stop on the pedestrian bridge to create some cityscapes from this vantage point.

We ended the night with a truly amazing sunset and blue hour at North Ave Beach.

Day 2 began in the Gold Coast with a stop by the Sofitel, Presbyterian Church and John Hancock Building. Up first some details and fun with the geometry and patterns of the Sofitel.

Maybe one to add to my Structures + Soul series…

The John Hancock Building reflecting in the Gratz Center of the Fourth Presbyterian Church.

A little detail shot of the Hancock…

Inside the southside lobby of the Hancock is this great sculpture, here’s an abstract shot of that.

After lunch we headed to Millennium Park to shoot the Bean and Pritzker Pavilion. I haven’t really photographed the Bean in a long time. It’s one of those locations everyone shoots so it’s hard to come up with something original. Still, the curvy reflections are always fun to play with.


Then I got a little distracted and found a new image for my Urban Quilt series…

Back to the Bean, or the technically correct name – Cloud Gate – designed by Anish Kapoor.



Just next to the Bean, is the Pritzker Pavilion designed by Frank Gehry.




Next, we took a short walk to the Studio Gang designed Aqua. Lately, when I stop by to photograph this, I seem to want to zoom in on the waves of the building.




Next we were off to Trump Tower. I spotted this along the way and couldn’t resist that great light!

Now at Trump…I’ve photographed this so many times so it’s hard to come up with something new but this is probably my favorite from the day.

We hopped on the water taxi from here and headed to Chinatown for our final locations of day 2. First, was the Chinatown Library. We had such amazing clouds!

After a pitstop for some bubble tea we ended the night at the 18th Street Bridge for some sunset and blue hour cityscapes.

And, some playing around with blurred focus.

Our third and final day started bright and early with sunrise at the river and Lake Shore Drive. You kind-of never know if getting up that early to catch sunrise will be worthwhile but we really lucked out with one of the best sunrises I’ve ever seen. Instead of focusing on the city I headed over to the lake to catch it with the boats in the foreground.

After sunrise we walked over to Olive Park for some more cityscapes and we caught this great reflection in the marble benches.

We stopped by Navy Pier for breakfast and some shooting but I didn’t get anything I loved from there:( After that, we stopped by Lake Point Tower, again nothing I loved. Then we headed to the new Shirley Ryan Ability Lab which has this really colorful area, it worked well against the reflective glass of the building, which took on a silvery, gray tone with the cloudy skies.


Onto Burberry, one of my favorite locations to create abstracts and play with the geometric shape of the facade and all the reflections . Loved how the neighboring building reflecting in this first one felt like ribbons.


 

After lunch we stopped by two indoor locations. First, the Cultural Center. Another spot I’ve photographed a lot. This time focused on a couple details around the Tiffany Dome.


Our final stop was the Palmer House.
As usual, this is a sample of what I shot over the weekend, for everything you can check out this set.
We really lucked out with amazing weather all weekend and we had a fantastic group with us. Already looking forward to next year’s workshop here! But, before then we’ll be heading to Los Angeles, NYC and Paris. Head over here for links with more details. We hope you can join us for one of these great locations!