The world famous 'CHICAGO' sign on State Street.
I recently returned from a brilliant holiday in Chicago, visiting my girlfriend’s brother and his wife, they showed us an absolutely brilliant time, what a great city! Of course when we decided to go I had a dilemma, what would I bring to shoot with? I must admit that I didn’t know a huge amount about Chicago, except that it was famous for it’s architecture. What I did know, was that I was very much working on a size/weight budget, so I would have to be clever about what equipment I would bring. Obviously my d80 was coming with me but what lenses would I bring with it? I started out thinking about my Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 which is my usual walkabout lens, so I popped it in my trusty Lowepro Slingshot 200AW, and popped that in my carry on. Problem: I had just about enough room to fit a pair of shoes left over. The Slingshot was full of air, and the carry on bag was full of the Slingshot.
Ah well, I thought, I might as well stock up so! Back out with the Slingshot and in went my Nikkor 55-200mm f/4-5.6 and sure while I was at it I thought, I might as well chuck in my Nikkor 10.5mm f/2.8 fisheye. Right, one bag full of camera stuff, and one bag full of the other bag. I was just reaching for my tripod, when I thought wait, this is crazy, I need to get back to basics! Then I was hit by the spark of inspiration – my Nikkor 50mm f/1.4! Out came the Slingshot, and in went my trusty d80 and on it was the nifty fifty, all wrapped up in a hoody! Perfect, I can walk about with this lens, it’s light as a feather, and the glass is sharp, as in sharper than the devils razor blade sharp.
Hanging in the Dairy
To tell the truth I’d forgotten just how good this lens is, since I moved to the 17-55 it hadn’t gotten too much love, only being brought out occasionally for it’s stunning depth of field. I saw this as an opportunity to get creative, 50mm on a full frame sensor is a great focal length, really good for ‘normal’ photography, but on the dx sensor of the d80 it’s slightly into the telephoto range. I knew it would be slightly restrictive, and I was looking forward working within that restriction, as it would mean I would have to get creative when trying to capture this urban landscape.
Apart from it’s razor sharpness the other great thing about this lens is it’s speed, f/1.4 really means being able to use it anywhere at a decent ISO. We visited several museums and an urban farm and I was able to use the 50 to great effect here. My poor d80 doesn’t cope so well with noise (praying to the gods of Nikon for a d7000 sometime next year!), so it’s great to have that extra light gathering capability that only something like the 50 can deliver.
It’s a great lens for walking around with too, nice and small, easily concealed and thanks to the BlackRapid strap I picked up in Calumet while I was in Chicago it’s out and taking pics in milliseconds.
We Serve and Protect
One of the days we were there we took an Architectural Boat tour. A boat takes you up the Chicago river and the tour guide points out buildings of note, giving you a bit of history and architecture 101 rolled into one tour. I have to say it was interesting in it’s own right, and definitely worth a go. I was faced with a bit of a challenge as to what I would do with my camera though. I started out thinking I would pan and shoot and then stitch the images afterwards, if not into panoramas, at least into 3:2 aspect photos which ‘got more in’. I quickly gave up on this idea, partly because I dislike adding an extra task in post processing, but also because I felt it was against the spirit of my 50mm challenge. I then thought about concentrating on ‘details’, trying to pick out a corner or gargoyle which was interesting, but this wouldn’t work because the 50 just doesn’t get in close enough. The only option was to go somewhere in between, to fill the frame with pure building, with these great skyscrapers.
Chicago: Stone Steel & Glass #3
I was glad I did! I ended up with a collection of photo’s which I have entitled Chicago: Stone, Steel and Glass. Some of the photos attempt to represent the pure elements which make up the building, the steel frame, the stone facade, and the glass windows. Others attempt to place the building within the urban landscape by incorporating reflections from other buildings, a nod towards traditional architectural photography, an attempt to capture the person of a building, trapped within the essence of another building. I chose to process this collection in a monochrome ‘cross processed’ style, which gives a sort of blue-on-cream effect when viewing them. I think this works well as I didn’t want to go for full black and white, as I felt there might be too much grey in the frame. In keeping with the anonymity of the buildings at this detail level, I have entitled the images simply with the numeric order in which they appear in the collection.
All in all I’m delighted with the choice to go minimalist and just bring the 50, it more than proved it’s worth on the trip. Stay tuned for the next post, when I’ll be talking about another collection which I made while in Chicago! In the mean-time, I’ll be catching up with an old flame called the nifty fifty!
Lake Michigan
Great post, followed from Boards.ie (Borderfox) Fair play for bringing just one lens. Very well written too
Also followed from boards.ie – great post and really interesting read!
Great post Hugh. Takes balls to only bring a fifty and smashing results.