A couple weeks ago Michael and I led our first photowalk through our new teaching site, Photography Unfolded, on Evanston’s Northwestern University campus. We had a great group and we spent a beautiful summer day on the lakefront exploring a few of the university’s newer buildings.
We started at the Segal Visitor Center designed by Perkins + Will. The first two shots are from the west entrance. A nice combination of curves and lines to contrast each other.


On the east side of the building is the parking garage. Love the sail-like facade the architects added to hide the parking structure. Very fitting given its lakeside location.

Another take on those sails, this time on the north side of the structure.

These last two are from a greater distance, which allows you to see the curvy/wavy pattern. And depending on the angle you’re standing at, the structure is either partially visible or completely hidden. Really love how it changes so much as you walk by.


A short distance north is the Ryan Center for Musical Arts designed by Goettsch Partners. Given I shot mostly with my 70-3oomm lens, I focused on the details of the building. I have some wider shots here from a previous day of shooting.

After a nice little walk north along the lakefront, you run into the newest building on campus – The Kellogg School of Management or Global Hub designed by KPMB Architects. While I love all three of the buildings we’ve talked about so far, this might be my favorite. Love the combination of curves and lines, glass, steel and wood. Plus, the translucent fins on the facade add another element of interest.







The campus also has a lot of brutalist architecture. The library, below, reminds me a lot of the Regenstein Library on the University of Chicago campus. I think the striated surface works great with black and white processing, which further emphasizes the texture of the building.

However, there’s one section with smoother concrete. The soft warm hues from the sun and soft blue sky worked better in color for this portion of the building. At least I thought so, though I did edit in B&W too…of course 😉 You can see that and more from the day right over here!
Stay tuned for the 2019 workshop schedule, which will be coming out soon, by signing up for the Photography Unfolded newsletter, this also gets you a free ebook on creating architectural abstracts like these. As for 2018…there are 2 spots still open for Paris and a few spots for the Friday add-on in Chicago (the main workshop is sold out).