A Personal Amateur Photography Blog
Lincoln Park and Garfield Park are both city parks in Chicago that have impressive glass conservatories. This time of year both are having their spring flower shows.
We start with Lincoln Park.
And now it was on to Garfield Park
Garfield Park’s is larger, with more rooms, including an impressive cacti collection.
Larry Klermont is a 90 year old who made a fortune in real estate in Chicago. With this money Larry started collecting cars, but not until he was in his 70s. His collection is housed in a 100,000 square foot former printing facility (that at one time printed Playboy!).
The collection includes many of the classic, but also a number of cool and quirky cars. As noted on the previous posting this is day 1 with a new point and click camera, so it gave the chance to have many more low angle photos.
While most of the photos on this blog were taken with a Canon DSLR camera there are times where a large camera doesn’t work, like when you are trying not to be noticed on the streets of a city like Chicago.
The previous ‘point and click’ camera has too many issue, so it was time for a new one – a Canon G5X. This is the first attempt at seeing how it performs in the field. As it is new most photos were taking on ‘Auto’ while learning the additional functions.
And now for the tougher test – night time.
It does not perform like a SLR, but with some learning it will do the job.
Late October means it is time for Open House Chicago – our 3rd straight year! As always there were hundreds of volunteers making sure your visit to over 250 buildings went well.
This year ended up having an emphasis on theaters and churches. We started with the Goodman Theater.
Just around the corner is the Nederlander Theater. Built in 1926 and operated for nearly 100 years as the Oriental Theater, it was recently renamed for James Nederlander, the founder of Broadway in Chicago.
It is the most ornate theater I have ever seen.
Our morning of theaters ended with the Lyric Opera Theater.
Chicago was for many years the mail order center of the world, and as such had a massive main post office, located next to Union Station. Today it is being redeveloped into condos.
The Monroe Building is located along South Michigan Avenue. Built in 1912 it has one of the largest collections of Rookwood Pottery tiles in the world.
The Seventeenth Church of Christ is a modern style church located amongst the skyscrapers of Wacker Drive. Completed in 1968, it has a unique look for a church.
For something totally different we made a visit to the Prairie Concrete Company. It is the largest volume concrete dealer in the country, with the capability of creating enough concrete for a 2 car garage every 90 seconds!
This is their only pink cement truck.
The hundred year old Motley School was closed and refurbished into apartments.
Our final stops were churches in Ukranian Village.
Some random views of Chicago.
The chance to go up in some of the buildings in downtown Chicago + zoom lens = close ups of some of the classic old skyscrapers upper floors not normally visible!
Most were taken from the 26th floor of 333 North Michigan Avenue.
A beautiful late afternoon in October was the perfect time to take the Chicago Architectural Foundation’s River Tour. The highlights…
