bean
by empala64

Comment by bucket:
I like this shot-interesting way to look at your city. A bit too much glare of off the two buildings.

fast city
by empala64

Comment by bucket:
The streaks of light on the sides are great-the glare of the lamps dominates too much for my eye though..really takes away a bit from the excitement, as well steals focus from the streaks. Too much foreground street for me as well.

bean
by empala64

Comment by whagerbaumer:
I think this is an excellent photo. Central to that is using a long lens, so that you are not a large part of the image. You have also processed it so that the image is quite sharp. There are certainly areas for improvement. The lighting is mid afternoon and quite harsh. The sky has washed out on the upper right and the courtyard and buildings on the right are quite dark. If this picture was taken in raw, you might try reducing the exposure in the conversion process you use, and if you have photoshop cs, you might attempt using the shadow / highlight feature to bring out detail in the dark and light areas. If it was a jpeg, you will be able to recover some of the detail in the shadows, but the highlights are lost. There are methods using curves and blending layers that will recover some shadow / highlight detail, and you can also recover some in Google's free Picasa. However, the best answer is to reshoot when the light is not so intense. A long exposure right after the sun goes below the horizon would produde an amazing shot, as would a very early in the morning long exposure. I would also move to my left when taking the picture, as the buildings on the right are more interesting.

bean
by empala64

Comment by srbrubaker:
I would have loved to see how this would have done in the lines competition. I like the choice of positions, the Chicago skyline looks good in this reflected image, and it is lit with good light. I like the lines of the plaza reflected in the bean. I take it that the figure we see in the middle of the reflection is the photographer; nice choice to use a long lens. I'm finding the disembodied legs on the left side of the photo distracting, though I am impressed at how solitary this public place is when you chose to photograph it. I am an advocate of tight cropping; and perhaps this was the exactly correct thing to do; but the way the buildings on the right interact with the edge of the 'bean' bothers me in a way I can't articulate. I only wonder if a less tight crop would have fixed the problem.

Overall, I think this a solid effort.