Late November I did a little photowalk through Photography Unfolded where we covered some of Chicago’s beautiful interior locations. Our first stop was the Palmer House Hilton. I’ve photographed here so much this last year that it’s getting a bit challenging to find a new way to photograph this space. So, this time I shot with my wide-angle lens, not something I use very often but for my favorite staircase in here it works well. Given the curvy nature of the staircase, the wide lens exaggerates those curves and you can really feel that motion.
First, a lookup from the first level.

Next, a lookup from the second level of the same staircase.

Sticking with the curviness of the day, we’ll skip over to the Art Institute of Chicago and a favorite staircase in there. This time playing with the shadows cast on the nearby wall, which creates a mirroring effect.

At the top of the staircase and looking into a nearby gallery space, there are these amazing arches. Here are a couple takes on those. The first with some nice layers.

This one I thought looked a bit like an Angel’s Trumpet flower, a nice addition to my Pareidolia series.

Onto a couple spaces that are more geometric. Here’s the fantastic sculptural wall inside the Spertus Institute. Zooming in on just a section of the walls and emphasizing the gray tones in post-processing this space can feel a bit like crumpled paper.

Another stop was the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for this, somewhat hidden, staircase. Instead of framing this in a rectangular way, I positioned myself in the corner to create triangular, pyramid-like shapes resulting in more tension within the frame.

Ending back at the Art Institute with a detail of the Renzo Piano-designed staircase in the Modern Wing.

You can see more from our morning here. Stay tuned at Photography Unfolded for upcoming photowalks and workshops. Alos, feel free to let me know which locations you’d like for us to add to the list in the comments below. Hope to see you soon!