Tag: city | Central Florida Photo Ops

Lynn and I attended this year’s Pressing Iron and Trivet Collectors convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We like the Amtrak Autotrain and once again rode it from Sanford, Florida to Lorton, Virginia and then drove our car the rest of the way.

Pittsburgh: Downtown along the Monongahela River

I’m still the “semi-official” PITCA photographer, so I spent a lot of time there photographing the people, activities, and displays. I also presented a talk on “Collectible Photography” that seemed to go well. But I did manage to fit in a bit of exploration time.

The first photo above is from a morning I spent up on Mount Washington – what a spectacular view of the city! Highly recommended if you’re ever nearby.

On another day, we went on a riverboat cruise that PITCA arranged for the group and that’s highly recommended too. Three different rivers converge in Pittsburgh, so there’s a lot of water and many bridges that add to the scenery.

Pittsburgh: From the junction of the Ohio, Monongahela, and Allegheny Rivers

I didn’t get a chance to ride Duquesne Incline, but it looks like fun too.

Duquesne Incline – from the river up to Mount Washington

When I was a kid, we used to visit my grandparents every year. We’d usually travel to Cedartown, Georgia in the summertime where my Mom’s folks lived. At Christmas, we’d go to Cannonsburgh, Pennsylvania to be with my Dad’s family. I remember Pittsburgh only as an “almost there” waypoint on the route to Cannonsburgh – I don’t think we ever stopped. As an adult, I visited Pittsburgh on business once or twice and went to see my Dad’s brother (also named Ed) who lived in Ambridge (just north-west of Pittsburgh). But this is the first time I’ve ever actually had a little time to go into the city and look around. I wish I’d done it sooner – Pittsburgh is very picturesque!

Pittsburgh: West End Bridge and the Ohio River

After the convention, Lynn and I spent a few more days traveling around other parts of Pennsylvania and I have some photos from that I hope to share with you in a future post.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!

I’ve always wanted to see Chicago. It’s my birthplace – but we moved away shortly after I was born. For some reason, I never made it back until this year. I spent a few days exploring at the end of September. My daughter had a business trip there and some spare frequent flyer points, so she gave me a ticket. Thanks, MK!!!

Chicago and Lake Michigan from the air – my first photo of the trip. It was wonderfully clear as we approached the city. You can really see how large Lake Michigan is.

Mary was busy, so I booked a hotel downtown and spent the first afternoon and evening wandering around by the lake shore. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a bit of a problem. I wasn’t used to all that walking and ended up with sore feet and blisters. Which didn’t help me to walk around on the following days – but I still managed to get a few photos.

I did some research online and asked a few questions about places to photograph. One of my Flickr contacts (Brian Koprowski) lives in the area and gave me several good hints. Thanks to him, I ended up at the Adler Planetarium on the first evening. The sunset wasn’t that exciting, but I thought the city across the water at twilight was pretty.

City at twilight

I also liked this fisheye view of the Field Museum that I made on my way back to the hotel. It reminded me of the movie “Night at the Museum“, although that wasn’t filmed here.

Night at the museum – Field Museum

The next day I again walked the city (and made my feet worse). My first stop was the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower), where there’s a view from the glass balcony observation deck on the 103rd floor. A wonderful place for a fisheye lens!

From the top of Chicago – Another fisheye view. This one is from the Willis Tower observation deck, 1353 feet above the city

There’s a lot to see around the city including a great deal of sculpture and artwork. And glass on the buildings creates many compositional opportunities. In this image, I waited for the photographer on the near right to get into place so I could finish my photo – I had hoped she’d move a bit more to the left, but oh well.

Flamingo – This artwork by Alexander Calder is in the Federal Plaza

Here’s another rather strange piece of street art. I couldn’t resist adding a little “digital makeup” in Photoshop.

Planter head

Later that evening I ended up in Millennium Park where the Cloud Gate sculpture is located. I liked the scene – with all the people contrasting with the buildings and sculpture.

Cloud Gate (AKA “the bean”)

My son Mike drove down to meet us and we spent the next morning riding the “L” train, bicycling along the lake shore, and visiting Portillo’s Delli for a Chicago Dog. When Mary joined us that afternoon we took a boat tour on the Chicago River and ate some very good Chicago deep dish pizza for dinner. The final morning before our flight back to Orlando we toured the Museum of Science and Technology and drove by Mercy Hospital where I was born. I was only a little disappointed that there was no “Welcome Back Ed!” banner above the hospital entrance.

I enjoyed my short visit and definitely felt a kinship with this wonderful city. I want to go back again and see more. It’s so diverse that no trip as short as this could possible do it justice.

You can see larger versions of these photos and some others from our Chicago trip in this set on Flickr.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!

Central Florida Photo Ops

What and where they are and how to photograph them.

Tag Archives: city

Pittsburgh, PA

Chicago, Ill. Sept. 2013