Thanksgiving in Chicago

I hadn't been in Chicago for a few years and I returned there over Thanksgiving. There wasn't a lot of time for picture taking, but I did manage to shoot something.
The day after Thanksgiving we went in town for a late lunch at a nice local pub (Southport Lanes and Billiards, which, interestingly, is housed in an old bordello); after we came out, it was starting to snow and the streets were getting nicely covered in snow. We drove around a bit and ended up at the Planetarium. This is my favorite spot for taking pictures of the Chicago skyline.

Tip: when you take pictures while it's snowing and you want the snowflakes
to be visible in the picture, use the flash: the light from it will bounce on
the flakes and add a certain feeling to the picture.

The following day we went to Grant Park (click here to see it from a satellite). It offers some new attractions and interesting photo opportunities, located in the new Millennium Park (also here). By the way, a sign at the entrance says that Millennium Park is Mayor Daley's gift to the populace of Chicago... hmm... did he really pay for it, or was it the populace that actually footed the bill for the "gift"? Anyone in the know, let me know.

One of the photo opportunities is the Cloud Gate sculpture, which offers the possibility of shooting some pretty nice reflections. This must be on its way to becoming the most photographed thing on the planet. Everybody is there taking pictures. I suspect you could achieve the same effect in Photoshop, but the real thing does have its attractiveness. It almost looks like an alien spaceship.

The other cool new thing is the Crown Fountain. This is basically two units of what is probably the biggest TV set in the world. They both constantly show the faces of different people and intermittently spit water out of the mouth of the people being shown. They appear to be just regular people, not models or celebrities. The effect is pretty hypnotic, but at first also somewhat creepy.

No spitting water in winter, but pretty cool nevertheless. Lots of people taking pictures here too.

Read here all about the symbolism of the fountain.

Here is a close-up of the big TV's mega-pixels (pun intended - if you didn't get it maybe it's better). They are pretty big. Find out here what digital photography gear heads have to say about (low, in this case) pixel density...

Even if you're not a techno-geek, though, it is interesting to see up close how pixels of just 3 colors are able to create a natural-color image.

Last stop in our Chicago Thanksgiving tour was Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. I guess most people see it in summer, but from a photographer's perspective it's much more interesting in winter.