State Street Bridge from Chicago Riverwalk

The Story:

During January of 2012 my youngest brother was in his Freshman year of college in Chicago.  I had been unable to visit with my family over Christmas or New Years, so I decided to stop through and visit him on my way to Cleveland.  I flew in on a Friday, and then met him after class at his Red Line stop. He walked me through some of the campus before we caught the Red Line back to downtown.

We disembarked near the Magnificent Mile and started walking towards Millennium Park.  Given a camera and potential subject, I am at risk of just wandering around quite a bit.  Or a lot.  My brother is a little over six feet tall, about 130 pounds, and frequently a bit cold. He seemed the perfect companion to wander around for hours on a chilly, windy evening.  We grabbed dinner (at Noodles and Co, I think) and then walked towards the “Cloud Gate.”  I hadn’t seen it at night, and thought the ice rink in the plaza below might be cool.  I enjoy skating, but I was with my one sibling that has a strong aversion to it so I abstained and snapped pictures instead.  Plus, my skates were in Cleveland, and rental skates pale in comparison to my trusty CCM’s.

The Shot:

After a while, we walked past the Chicago Theater back up to the river.  I thought I might find interesting perspectives of The Wrigley Building or Tribune Tower.  To explore, we ventured down below street level onto the Riverwalk.  It was strangely uncrowded on a cold January Friday night, but what I ended up finding was not any of the buildings I expected.

When we got down along the water, I actually found looking the other direction to be more interesting.  The lights reflected off the ripples of the Chicago River out from the Bataan-Corregidor Memorial State Street Bridge.  On one side the unique Marina Towers, and 55 W Wacker and 77 West Wacker among other buildings across the way frame an overcast negative space.  Until recently I had eschewed tripods, and in the cold I was not a steady hand.  Luckily I found a railing to help steady the 1/6 sec shutter speed.  A few minutes later, we walked back up to street level and found somewhere warm to hang out.