mounted on gator board ready for hanging
$245.00

Framed and matted: $185.00

Still having the high powered lens I use for my event photography coverage, Teri, Troy, and I headed off to the Planetarium to photograph the "Sox Win" signs emblazoned on some of downtown Chicago's buildings. Not having photographed skylines for several years, I decided to take most of my equipment. Better to have it and not use it, than need it and not have it handy. The all important hot chocolate was packed with the equipment as well. The morning was quite brisk, and now with the sun down, who knows what the Chicago temperature has in store for us.

On a previous visit to the Planetarium we noticed that this was a hot spot for having wedding pictures taken, especially with the beautiful Chicago skyline in the background. Troy had mentioned that a picture of the Chicago skyline with the "Sox Win" featured on the office buildings would definitely be a Sox Fan's treasure.

Once we arrived at the Planetarium, we were met with blustering winds and 40 degree weather. After setting up the Nikon D100, outfitted with a 70-200mm VR lens, supported on a lightweight tripod, I quickly understood the benefits of working with a heavier tripod. The wind was buffeting my camera and the huge lens as if it were going through a mini earthquake. Improvising in this situation, I had Teri and Troy act as wind blockers as I took the pictures.

Once I got the exposure set properly for the evening image, I proceeded to take a total of nine images, that would be later put together as the final panoramic image. Knowing that when stitching multiple pictures together to create a panoramic image, perspective compensation has to be accounted for, I made sure that I overlapped each image generously, and that for the major buildings like the Sears Tower, that I kept them in the center of the picture, away from the left and right edges of the picture frame. The entire shoot took about forty-five minutes. That's forty-five minutes in Chicago's windy late fall weather. We were all happy to get back into the car and start warming up.

Once the pictures were downloaded to the computer, I was able to look at them and tweak the exposure just a bit using the Raw adjustments in Nikon Capture4. Usually shooting JPG files for my Event Photography coverage, I emailed my brother Bernard the news that I actually shot something using the Raw format. Being a photographer himself, he'd be so proud of me since he's a big proponent of the Raw capture format. Putting the pictures together in Photoshop did not seem as difficult as I originally thought. I did have to compensate for a little perspective change, but I was able to put the entire panoramic together in Photoshop without having to invest in a panoramic stitching program. I'm glad I didn't have to incur another expense in my ever expanding photography addiction.

What you see in the above photo presentation is the Full Skyline, from the Shedd Aquarium to Navy Pier. Since there are some people that don't have the 60 inches of wall space for an image like this, a Partial Skyline image was created. The Partial Skyline image covers from the Sears Tower to the John Hancock building. This Partial Skyline image seems more geared towards a Die Hard Sox Fan while the Full Skyline seems more geared towards a Die Hard Chicago Skyline Fan. I hope you like the above image, and have enjoyed a little glimpse of what went into creating the image.

Charles Mortel