join me for some wonderful sunset views of chicago shot on portra 400 & 800, including some classic city night shots.
For a recent work trip I managed to fly in earlier on Sunday and have a few hours to enjoy the John Hancock 360 observatory with some colleagues. We were lucky with the weather and arrived about 45 minutes before sunset, so got the best of twilight and blue hour. I had with me my Mamiya 6 and all 3 lenses (50mm, 75, and 150mm).
I really like this shot, it is a pity about the blur - the windows were quite dirty!
Navy Pier in the distance. Lake Michigan is really quite something, you have to remind yourself it is not an Ocean!
View looking north. The second photo is shot with the Mamiya 150mm tele lens - impressive!
This could have been a really good shot at night with some traffic light trails.
I love the softness of this shot. The second shot is cropped showing Trump Tower and Willis Tower.
Chicago has some great architecture, especially enjoyable from above.
Another similar shot at a slightly later time and different lighting conditions.
A slightly inward view north, there was a really nice soft sunset lighting at the horizon. You can also just about make out an airplane heading to O’Hare.
Some digital shots of yours truly at work, the “tilt” part of the observation deck, and a bunch of people pretending they have never seen a sunset before. Thanks to Dion for the shots of me at work!
Back at ground level, a look up a half frozen river with Trump Tower peering into the shot.
Trump Tower from my hotel room.
Another hotel room shot - I was lucky to borrow a small tripod for this shot.
Looking down North Michigan Avenue, you can see some halation of the lights due to Portra 800 being used.
The famous skywalk at O’Hare airport connecting United B & C concourses - a delight for Portra 800 handheld!
overall observations
I was really happy to have some time to explore Chicago with my Mamiya 6 kit and it was great to get up the John Hancock tower, however I sometimes find taking shots from observation decks a bit dull. Especially so when I see everyone taking exactly the same sunset frame. But it was nice to try to experiment a bit with the different lenses and shadow shapes from the buildings. Also, Chicago for architectural shots is a dream and I really must bring along my large format Linhof gear at some point in the future - there are so many great compositions.
I hope you enjoyed this brief post - there are more to come as I have quite a few in the backlog!
Thanks for stopping by!
Neil
