Chicago has more than its fair share of interesting architecture. This particular building, currently known as 35 Wacker, was originally built as the “Jeweler’s Building”, since it was home to many businesses in the jewelry trade. In fact, for the first 14 years of the building’s existence, there was a car elevator in the center of the building which would allow deliveries of precious cargo to be driven into the building and taken directly to one of the first 23 floors to ensure security. The top of the building has an interesting history as well. At one time this portion of the building contained the ‘Stratosphere Lounge’ and during prohibition was rumored to have been a speakeasy run by Al Capone. This space is now owned by the architectural firm JAHN who have their offices on a lower floor. This firm’s lineage dates back to the original architecture firm of D.H Burnham & Co., which has had offices in this building since it’s construction in 1926

On a recent trip to New York City I had the opportunity to spend a little time outside the Guggenheim Museum. It was late in the day and I didn’t have the time to actually go inside so I decided to get some exterior shots. I’ve always been fond of the design of this museum and I wanted to capture some of its details. For me the two things that stand out about this museum is the unique inverted ziggurat he used as the main display area, and the typography used on the exterior lettering. The plain white concrete shapes with the simple black lettering really appeal to me. I was trying to capture something a bit more abstract than just a regular architectural shot so I played with different angles. I liked the angle on this shot, but the image was rather flat coming out of the camera. I used a few different tools in Lightroom 4 to help bring out the texture of the surface and to increase the contrast. Probably the change that had the most effect was bumping the clarity up to 100 while reducing the highlights and blacks.

I’m slowly going back over some images that I shot over the summer to find ones that I either overlooked or never got a chance to work with. This image comes from the 2011 Concours d’Elegance of America show held at St. John’s near Plymouth, Michigan. The car is a 1957 Buick Century Caballero Estate Wagon. What caught my eye when I saw it was the interesting “Mint Green and Dover White” color scheme and interesting styling. As I was processing the image, the thought crossed my mind that the image sort of looks like the Eye of Horus with the exhaust ports being the eyebrow and the tire being the eye.