A couple of Saturday’s ago I did a short photowalk for R.S. Chicago Photography Classes around the Loop with a focus on some of Chicago’s public art.

The first stop was Calatrava’s Constellation. Though I grabbed this new shot for the Urban Quilt series before we started.

A couple takes on Constellation once we all met up and began shooting. I only brought one lens with me for the day, my 70-300mm. It’s my most preferred lens and I wanted to keep things simple. So, the focus here had to be on those details. I always like how the bright red contrasts with the blue reflected in the neighboring buildings.

We made a last-minute change of plans to head over to another newer piece of art, the Atmospheric Wave Wall by Olafur Eliasson, instead of the Bean. Just before getting there, I made these two shots of the same building. One filling the frame, which I preferred in B&W, the other with negative space, which I preferred in color because of the contrast in the blue sky and warmth of the sun on the concrete. Both focused on patterns.

Now for the Atmospheric Wave Wall, which draws inspiration from the changing light on and waves of Lake Michigan. This first shot I liked in both color and B&W, each emphasizing different aspects of the walls patterns.

The same here with a slightly wider shot including a neighboring building to the west.

Heading across the street, there was some nice shadow play on the street in front of the wall. And looking a bit higher I like the layers of the wall with the Sears Tower and other buildings from the loop. Lots of different patterns going on!

Turning to the west, I just liked the shadows on this building. Once again, liking both the color and B&W.

We stopped by the Calder Flamingo and the Picasso sculpture but because I had just been there a week earlier, I didn’t really get anything I was loving this week.

I did, however, grab one new shot of Chase Tower. You guessed it, both color and B&W.

I’ll be teaching a mini-workshop at RS Chicago Photography Classes this July (16th & 23rd). The first session will include a presentation covering composition related to creating architectural abstracts, followed by a photowalk downtown to put what we covered into practice.

The second session will be a review of your images, with some post-processing tips and time for you to print a couple of your own images. Get all the details here!