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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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!

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

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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.

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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!