Pictures in Chicago with James!

So James is one of my friends from college, and he's been into photography for awhile now, but recently decided to upgrade his camera and take a class, which I think is awesome. He's from Chicago and his parents still live here, so he's around fairly often, this past weekend he made a special megabus trip up for an afternoon of hanging out and taking pictures with me! And it was so awesome!

You can check James blog out here--I don't think he's put his Chicago pictures up yet, but I'll try to let you know when he does. I think it's so beneficial for photographers to shoot together, because you can learn so much from each other and because it's really interesting to see how different two people's pictures of the same things can be.

So, here's a picture looking down the subway (that's the Red Line, for you locals). I love the perspective and shadows, but I think I might like to shoot this again. I can't wait for you to see James'--he was looking the other way, and caught a great one of the train coming around the bend in the tunnel.

We started out in Chinatown, both for pictures and for lunch, and this hilarious sign was on the door and begging for its picture to be taken. The sweat drops and the crazy mouth really complete the effect for me. If anyone is curious, we ate at The Three Happiness, which was really good and reasonably priced. Although James did get something with potatoes in it, and we're pretty sure those potatoes were frozen crinkle-cut french fries. Funny, but still tasty. :)

James actually caught this and commented that it would be a cool picture, but I think he was a little shy about taking pics of strangers. I was like, "I'll do it!" I think he did end up taking a couple too--this was the only one I shot, but I love it. I feel like I need more of this.

Just a little snapshot of a butcher shop--these drawings of animals are cuter than what was hanging in the windows, I can tell you that! (Just to avoid confusion, I'm a total meat-eater and in no way a vegetarian, but I do prefer to just see it when it's cooked ... and headless.)

A bike ... I'm not sure how much I'm loving this, but I do like bikes (especially my own, a bad ass '73 Schwinn Breeze, green) so I think I'm going to have to keep exploring the possibilities. Also, I did a lot of black and whites in this shoot, which reminds me of being in school. Fun!

WHAT?!?! I LOVE this sign. It's so 70's. The only thing that could make it better is if the lights were on, but I still love it like this. :)

Oh, and speaking of signs--I love old, rusted out, turned off neon signs. This was actually a really tough picture to take--the angle was odd, it was a long sign (it actually said "Overseas Art & Travel", but since I like art and travel both so much, I decided that I could take one of just those two words), there was no good way to get into the street to take it ... but I think it turned out pretty well in spite of the challenges.

This is the Winter Garden in that big fancy library downtown (I totally forget the name of it--help?). James set off an alarm by walking down a hallway, which made me laugh because I am ALWAYS setting off alarms and getting my own private security guards in places like that. But we could take pictures in the main room, and I loved the shadows.

This was on a bridge ... I think on Roosevelt? We were around Roosevelt and Congress. I remember looking down over train tracks when we were in the (miles long) line to get into the Obama election-night rally in Grant Park, and I was glad to see them again and get a shot. I think I'd like to get one going the other way at some point, but this was the best view from this bridge.

This is down by the lake, which is where we were heading when we were on Roosevelt. No significance to the 58, it just happened to catch my eye and I liked the cracks.

We found this SWEET little row of boats ... I know nothing about boats, actually, so I have no idea what kind these are, but I am SO excited for it to get warmer and to see all the boats out on Lake Michigan (and take pictures of them!). Having a giant lake here is almost as good as an ocean and it makes me happy every time I see it.

You could definitely see the storm clouds rolling in, and I loved the one lone boat.

And a similar shot in color.

This one was my favorite, though, with the little boats in the foreground. I'm in major love.

It was starting to sprinkle by this point and most people were clearing out, but I had to stop and take this picture of the two couples walking there. And I love how the people in the shot totally put the whole thing into perspective, because without them, you'd have no sense of scale whatsoever. Also, I really enjoy cropping with the 1 to 2 ratio and think I might have to do that more often.

James and I ended up hanging out under this bridge outside the Field Museum (it's just a pedestrian walkway, not a road or anything), and obviously plenty of other people had the same idea. And I loved the silhouettes of people trying to wait out the rain.

And this is the same thing on the other side of the bridge. I like the bike there, but really my favorite part of this picture is the misty museum in the background. I thought both these pictures were really fun.

I had THE best time with James on Saturday! And he's going to come back so we can do the architectural tour with Amy and Billy, which James will kick butt at (since he's awesome at the architecture pics ... I try to keep up). And we always have a good time together!

I've been enjoying my camera so much lately, especially as it gets nicer out.

Still waiting for some sunshine to get the cattails, but hopefully it won't be long!