I love Chicago!

[MichaelHarris]

I live in a very small eastern Washington town so I don't get to see the bright lights too often. My wife and I just got back from a trip to Chicago, we've been once before. While she attended a medical conference I walked the streets like I always do. Nothing like the Palouse where I live, some of my stuff: http://www.palousephoto.net/gallery/6052198_CtY9R#503643758_7jPcC

I was sitting at the park where they have those faces that shoot water out of projected faces when a group of kids came up and did some modeling. Looked interesting so I shot some of it. The last photo shows I wasn't the only one interested:

That kid played in that fountain for a good two hours in his underwear. He actually drew a crowd of photographers. All in all a wonderful trip except the last three days I developed pneumonia. We had a bit of a scare when at first it presented as the swine thing. Didn't know for sure if I was going to be able to get on a plane to come home.

Now I'm home, bedridden. I last about two hours when I try to do anything then I'm back down. I know I have to send a camera kit out Tuesday and you can bet I won't let the buyer down, even if I have to scratch and crawl my way to post office. I really want that M6 🙂

The good news about being sick after a trip is I get to lay in bed and edit my film scans. I only used my Zeiss Ikon ZM, my just sold Contax G1, and my little Panasonic LX3. It's a pretty nice travellin kit. I guess if this post has a purpose and it's in the Travel forum it might be a nice way to talk about travel kits, postprocessing after a trip, things like that.

Sorry for the rant, can't sleep. My breathing sounds like a chain saw.

Michael

 

[Dave Wilkinson]

Michael, I hope you are soon feeling a lot better, and up and about!, - those are very nice shots, but over here I would be very wary of attempting similar ones, nowadays!. I often walk in a nearby park with my camera, but keep well away from the kid's play area, people automatically think there is bad intention, it's an unfortunate sign of the times!.
Cheers, Dave.

 

[MichaelHarris]

Thanks Dave, every morning I think I'm better and try and do something. After an hour or two I just give up and lay back down. I normally don't shoot kids and girls in parks and stuff. Everyone seems so "twitchy". I usually like shooting down empty alleys and stuff. The only reason I shot this was about 15 other people with DSLRs started shooting the whole thing. My wife and I laughed about it but decided to join in.

It was then I noticed, people don't use small cameras anymore, ie point and shoots. Everyone had DSLRs of every model and make. I saw Grandmothers with D3s!

 

[robert blu]

Nice pictures Michael, specially the first with the four girls could be part of a fashion story! And the last one with the boy reading on the grass and that kinf of mirror/UFO on tha backgrround ! Editing after a journey is sometimes very difficult: I usually make two kind of editing : one pure photographic with main attention to the pictures and one for the family story with more attention to our special moment. The photo editing comes bettter when a wait for few weeks form the journey in order to be less influenced by the emotion of the moments.
Hope you are getting better, do not try to hard so long you era not really ok!
robert
A

 

[Thardy]

And the last one with the boy reading on the grass and that kinf of mirro/UFO on tha backgrround !
A

I'm not sure what that thing is officially named, but it goes by the name "BEAN". I've never seen it in person but it can be found on FLICKR.

 

[MichaelHarris]

Thanks Thomas and Robert. They do call it the bean and some people get really great shots of it at night.

Robert, I also sometimes wait a week or so after a trip. Someone told about a year ago they stopped shooting black and white film and shot only color, converting to B&W when they saw fit. I tried that this time but found with that Ektar film which I used exclusively on this trip turned out too nice to convert.

 

[Bingley]

Michael -- Very nice shots! Isn't Chicago a great city? And a great city for photography, too. My wife and I were there last December, and loved every minute even though it was very, very cold.

 

[jky]

Thanks for sharing the beautiful photos! Never been, but hopefully one day soon! Really like #3 (of the second set).

 

[dmr]

I'm not sure what that thing is officially named, but it goes by the name BEAN. I've never seen it in person but it can be found on FLICKR.

It's called Cloud Gate.

Search here on RFF. It's been discussed several times. In particular the legality of photographing and publishing images of it.

Here are two of my experiences with it:

http://omababe.blogspot.com/2007/01/forbidden-images-polishing-bean.html

http://omababe.blogspot.com/2007/10/cross-processing-bean.html