Luminous Field ups the surreal factor of the Bean to 11

Nikon D7000 w 16-85mm, 13sec at f13, ISO200. © Andy Marfia 2012 All Rights Reserved.

Have you ever thought to yourself, you know, I'm a big fan of Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate sculpture (aka: the bean), but that could really be weirder, more trippy, and even more surreal?  Well, I hope you stopped by the Luminous Field installation that ended on Monday by Chicago artists, Luftwerk, because your dreams were likely answered.  If not, check out this short video that explained the project:



The photographs in this post were all taken on a brisk Sunday evening.  I was expecting crowds, but it was even busier than usual, with hundreds of people milling about, taking photos, or chasing after their kids.  I intentionally brought only a mini-tripod with me.  This was partially a choice of convenience-- I had something else to photograph beforehand and didn't feel like carrying a lot of gear-- and partially because I expected everyone would be shooting from tripods.  I figured I'd try something different. 

Each photo was taken at ground level, with exposures between 1.3 and 13 seconds.  I tried to focus on the interaction between lights, bean, and people.  The first photo, and the next three, show the west (city facing) side of the installation.  This was the smaller of the two installations but also had a smaller crowd to deal with:


Nikon D7000 w 16-85mm, 2sec at f7.1, ISO200. © Andy Marfia 2012 All Rights Reserved.


Nikon D7000 w 16-85mm, 1.3sec at f7.1, ISO200. © Andy Marfia 2012 All Rights Reserved.


Nikon D7000 w 16-85mm, 13sec at f13, ISO200. © Andy Marfia 2012 All Rights Reserved.

This last photo is from the east facing side:


Nikon D7000 w 16-85mm, 6sec at f8, ISO200. © Andy Marfia 2012 All Rights Reserved.

Overall, I thought this installation was impressive, though I wasn't quite blown away by it.  As I stated in the beginning, it really pushed the bean's surreal factor, but the bean to me is already plenty surreal on its own.  Also, I suspect I would have enjoyed it more on a less crowded, and perhaps warmer, evening.  I realize having this in the summer wouldn't solve the crowd problem, but why not in the spring or fall? 

Photo of the Week: Millennium Leaning

Photo details: Nikon D7000 with 16-85mm lens, 1/60sec at f4.5, ISO1600

It's hard to get a unique photo of Millennium Park these days.  For every photo of the park that I think is pretty unique, there are a hundred others that have been copied by everyone else.  So I was excited when I discovered this vantage point from the 5th floor of the Chicago Cultural Center.  The Cultural Center is a bit of a maze, and sometimes I like to just wander around in there and see what I stumble upon.  In this case, I found an open room for the Chicago Children's Choir-- I don't think it's normally open to the public, but on this particular day the doors were open and it was empty, so I walked in and took a few photos.

For this next shot of the bean I thought I'd try something different:


Photo details: Nikon D7000 with 16-85mm lens, 1/80sec at f5.6, ISO3200

Instead of going black & white, I used the Tungsten white balance setting in Adobe Camera Raw to achieve this cool, bluish tone.  I could have arrived at a similar look by converting to black & white first, and then toning it blue, but I thought it had a little more pop this way. 

winter bean abstracts

The north side of Cloud Gate... aka: the bean... on a cold December afternoon.

Nikon D50 with various lenses (top photo: 18-70mm, middle photo: 60mm f2.8, bottom photo: 50mm f1.8).