My kind of town...Chicago

[phistio]

this for me will be a perpetual thread...the purpose of this thread is to share, and ask any of you your oppinions as comments and criticisms are welcomed.

i live near the city, so often i go downtown and shoot my heart away. i'm sure many of you have already seen the influence Chicago has had on many of my images. hope you enjoy!

please feel free to post any pictures you have from the Windy City here in this thread.

Chicago Theatre
http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/chicagotheatre.jpg

Chicago skyline from the the Shedd aquarium - (yes it's been touched in PhotoShop)
http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/skylinefromshedd.jpg

Hancock Building - that's a lotta' up!
http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/hancock.jpg

John G. Shedd aquarium from the north
http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/johngshedd.jpg

[George Riehm]

this for me will be a perpetual thread...the purpose of this thread is to share, and ask any of you your oppinions as comments and criticisms are welcomed.

i live near the city, so often i go downtown and shoot my heart away. i'm sure many of you have already seen the influence Chicago has had on many of my images. hope you enjoy!

please feel free to post any pictures you have from the Windy City here in this thread.



A town without equal. While I like Manhattan as a city, Chicago is still my one of my favorite "towns" ;) .

I used to make a lot of trips up to Zenith (Glenview) and Motorola (Schaumburg) and went "downtown" as often as possible.

What no river shots? Michigan Ave? Lakeshore Drive? Man, talk about a photo rich environment.

It would probably be easier to set up a gallery on a photo hosting site.

Great Shots!!!

[phistio]

thank you for your kind words! can't wait to see some of your manhattan shots...

i plan on posting many many many more photos, including river shots, Michigan Ave, State St., Lake Shore Drive, Wriggleyville, etc. but i'm trying to pace my self and not saturate this thread all at once. i wait for comments or criticism, and then post more. i just don't want any images to get lost in the thread.

and some have already asked...yes, the second image has been touched up in photoshop, the others have not. i suppose i should always state that... :rolleyes:

**ninja edit** at the time, the images mentioned had not been edited. through constuctive criticism, i've added or removed elements to improve the pictures...so now all four have been edited. the Chicago Theatre sign, was simply "magic wanded" and then i rendered clouds on a new layer, put the opacity at about 67% and merged the layers. the Hancock Tower shot, i simply cloned and smudged to remove the distraction. and the Shedd i simply rotated and cropped.

[George Riehm]

thank you for your kind words! can't wait to see some of your manhattan shots...

i plan on posting many many many more photos, including river shots, Michigan Ave, State St., Lake Shore Drive, Wriggleyville, etc. but i'm trying to pace my self and not saturate this thread all at once. i wait for comments or criticism, and then post more. i just don't want any images to get lost in the thread.

and some have already asked...yes, the second image has been touched up in photoshop, the others have not. i suppose i should always state that... :rolleyes:

Better yet, use a gallery service like smugmug. For $30 a year you get unlimited posting space with both secure and open viewing. When you want to post a gallery photo on this site (or any other) you simply copy the small preview image (not the thumbnail) which is automatically resized to below 100KB. It is also a good full-size, off-site, back-up storage for your favorites.

Here is my site for example:

http://d70fan.smugmug.com/

[phistio]

i appreciate the idea, but i have two .ftp's right now...if i really wanted to make a gallery (which i plan to) i could make a sub-domain on one of my websites. i guess my point is...why pay money for something i already can do. i post images here (from one of my ftp's) to to learn what works, so when the time comes to make my commercial gallery i'll have an idea of what will be sucessful. :D

[George Riehm]

i appreciate the idea, but i have two .ftp's right now...if i really wanted to make a gallery (which i plan to) i could make a sub-domain on one of my websites. i guess my point is...why pay money for something i already can do. i post images here (from one of my ftp's) to to learn what works, so when the time comes to make my commercial gallery i'll have an idea of what will be sucessful. :D

Good points. Didn't know that you already had a couple of FTP's. Even so you might want to see how they set up their galleries. I considered setting up a website a couple of years ago, but it's just way too time consuming, and for $30 a year, for unlimited space having a hosting service works for me.

The probelm with posting on a thread, like here, is that the images take a beating in the process.

Anyway we look forward to your Chi-Town Photos.

[wall]

My favorite is the Hancock Tower shot. The presence of the clouds really emphazised the "up-ness" of that building :D . A lot of people take shots of skyscrapers on clear, cloudless days, but the effect just isn't the same.

The last shot seems a bit crooked, but you probably already knew that :p . I would try to straighten it up somehow in PP so that its more balanced.

[D Thompson]

Ryan - here are my thoughts on your first 4 shots.

1 - nice composition, like the Chicago sign, upper right corner looks blown out.
2 - I really like this shot. It has great color. What post work did you do?
3 - taken from a great angle, really makes the shot for me. The little sliver on the right could stand to be cropped out.
4 - looks a touch over-exposed to me. Handheld or tripod? As Wall commented, I agree it looks a little crooked which could easily be fixed in PS.

Looking forward to more shots. I've only been to Chicago 1 time and that was a long time ago when I was 17. I won't tell you how long :D . Thanks.

Dennis

[phistio]

perfectly what i'm looking for...thank you so much! :D

if you scroll back up, have i fixed the elements that were distracting?

as far as the second shot is concerned...i'll post the original so you all can see. i'll have to judge by memory...but i know it was over-saturated, color balanced, sharpened. by this point, noise/pixelization could be seen because of the high contrast; so i used my smudge tool and started hand painting the clouds. (the smudge too is my favorite tool.) and then finally i rendered a lens flare for the moon. all unatural, i know...but so many people comment on how much they like the shot, i don't think many care what i've done in the post-processing. i realize an attitude like that may strike a chord with so many traditionalists...but it's digital art. :confused:

original settings: shot in manual 0.8 sec shutter, f/2.8, ISO - 160, focal range @7.8mm
http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/skylinefromsheddoriginal.jpg
http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/skylinefromshedd.jpg

[D Thompson]

perfectly what i'm looking for...thank you so much! :D

if you scroll back up, have i fixed the elements that were distracting?

as far as the second shot is concerned...i'll post the original so you all can see. i'll have to judge by memory...but i know it was over-saturated, color balanced, sharpened. by this point, noise/pixelization could be seen because of the high contrast; so i used my smudge tool and started hand painting the clouds. (the smudge too is my favorite tool.) and then finally i rendered a lens flare for the moon. all unatural, i know...but so many people comment on how much they like the shot, i don't think many care what i've done in the post-processing. i realize an attitude like that may strike a chord with so many traditionalists...but it's digital art. :confused:
Good job on the fixes! You fixed the things I mentioned and the shots, to me, look very nice. Thanks for posting the original of #2 and I think it turned out very creatively with your post production. While I am generally a traditionalist as to what I post here, I also like to play around with some of my images. I like the feedback on my "as they come from the camera". I know a lot of stuff I can fix in PS, but as the saying goes, "you've got to get it right in the camera". Looking forward to more of your Chicago series!

Dennis

[behr655]

I like all of the shots but I like the first one the best. I love old architecture. It has warmth. Modern buildings are usually cold and heartless.

Bear

[phistio]

here's a big dump of Chitown photos...

none are edited unless noted (cropping excluded)

you may want to refer the the names rather than number/order posted.

http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/chiacagorivercolor.jpg

http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/chicagoriver3.jpg

http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/chicagorivertourboat.jpg

http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/trib.jpg

[phistio]

more:

http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/cadillacpalace2.jpg

http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/cadillacpalace.jpg

http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/hancockfromnpfw.jpg

http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/navypiersunset.jpg

[phistio]

more:

http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/wrigleybuilding.jpg

http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/tribflag.jpg

original image
http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/npskylineoriginal.jpg
touched image-contrast brought way down, color balanced, and "pepsi" logo darkened
http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/npskylinetouched.jpg

[George Riehm]

more:



Nice tour. Thanks.

[phistio]

thanks...

more often than not, i pour my heart into my photography. (hence why i'm so thirsty for criticism...)

[Bald Eagle]

thanks...

more often than not, i pour my heart into my photography. (hence why i'm so thirsty for criticism...)
That is very obvious in all your shots. You have some very excellent shots in this thread. need to go into a magazine. but, you've heard that already. :)

[George Riehm]

thanks...

more often than not, i pour my heart into my photography. (hence why i'm so thirsty for criticism...)

Most of us do as well, it's just that we are used to criticism, and don't necessarily go looking for it. ;)

With your style, don't worry about the cri-tique, just keep working on the tech-nique.

When you shoot a place you love, it's like discovering it over and over again. Now for some winter shots... just after first snow...before the shoreline freezes...

[phistio]

thanks for the comments guys...

tucked away into the north side of downtown Chicago, there is a neighborhood which is closely knits the history of the life of American baseball. here in these Friendly Confines, the game of baseball has been played about as long as the sport has been around. i can think of only two other neighborhoods that share the same prestige; Beantown, and southwest Bronx (and of course Cooperstown...)

this is backyard ball:

Wrigley Field, RighField wall- taken from the Red line.
http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/friendlyconfines.jpg

a cloudy day, but none the less, the message i wanted to capture is conveyed. (it started raining crazy, just after this shot)
http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/cubsperience.jpg

i don't know which of these two angles to choose from
http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/cubswin.jpg

http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/cubswin2.jpg

[phistio]

here is yet another series...

feedback is greatly appreciated.

http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/artinstlion.jpg

http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/artinstlionbw.jpg

http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/lakeshorejogtrail.jpg

http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/staterushedvinned.jpg

[phistio]

a few more:

http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/searstower.jpg

http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/npbirdseye.jpg

http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/npnorth.jpg

http://www.digitalwraith.com/images/phistio/photos/npchildrensmuseumside.jpg

[Elizabeth]

These photos are beautiful. I just purchased a Canon S2 IS and am looking forward to many beautiful photos myself. Can you tell me what camera you used for your photos? I am not sure if you have mentioned it or not, sorry if you have.

I wish everyone would post what camera they use good way for others to see what each one can do :)))

ELizabeth