Room with a View

One result of going to a workshop to focus on one particular thing is that I wake up thinking about that one thing. In this case, I was in Chicago which is CST, and going from EST to CST is one of the few times I become a morning person. So I woke up at 5:30 am this morning thinking about pictures. The first thing I thought was "I'm going to try a picture from my window". The view from my room was to face Michigan Avenue and the lake. The Great Lake. And yesterday I was loathe to try a photograph from the dirty windows. But this morning? Anything was possible.

What was there to lose? Nothing ventured, nothing gained, yes? And the day before we'd spent photographing Mothers and Babies in a vacant room with flourescent lighting and no outside light and the heat up and a disproportionate number of photographers to subjects and STILL managed to produce some nice images, so I got up and tried it.

5:40 am

View from Chicago Hilton

6:15 ish am

View from Chicago Hilton

The fun thing is that in the first picture, the cross piece on the window almost blends in with the dark of the lake. It's more noticeable in the second one.

While these are no works of art, I was still pleased, because I was using a much different ISO (formerly film speed) than I would normally try, and as wide an aperture as I could, and a slower than normal shutterspeed. And you get a sense of the lovely blue of the sky - dark in the earlier shot and lighter in the later one. And the street lights are not just pinpoints of light, but are distinguishable as streetlights.

I'll put up some of the good shots from the photoshoot and of the class tomorrow. If you're interested in photography, I highly recommend a weekend like this, albeit with warmer temperatures!