Morning Becomes Chicago

When Mary and I were last in Chicago, we stayed at the Renaissance overlooking the river, the Marina City Towers (known as the Corncobs), the IBM Plaza, the Trump Tower, the Wrigley Building and all sorts of points in between. If you have any fondness for Chicago or architecture—and I love both—it’s a marvelous view. We’ve got a lot of pieces from this visit, and a few from this 15th floor vista. This is one of them.

Titled Sicut Ante Lucem—“as before the light”—this scene began just before dawn, buildings and streets still lit for the receding night, with the light tinted mauve by an October sun through an hazy sky intruding on an inky midnight blue sky. This is a big image suitable for a large wall print. It will be available soon in both our Fine Art Gallery. Enjoy!

Dawn glows over Chicago's River Walk District skyscrapers.
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Vista al anochecer del distrito River Walk de Chicago con las torres Marina City y la Trump International reflejándose sobre el río Chicago.

From the fifteenth floor of the Renaissance Hotel, the Chicago River bends through its architectural corridor in a thirty-second exposure that turns the predawn waterway into a ribbon of light — Marina City's twin corncob towers to the right, Trump Tower and the Wrigley Building beyond, Mies van der Rohe's IBM Building as a cool dark rectangle amid the warmth. Greg titled this image "Sicut Ante Lucem" — as before light — a name that describes the exact quality of a sky that has not yet decided between night and dawn. This panorama required a fifteen-floor vantage point that few photographers can access, and the thirty-second exposure demanded a sky that would hold still long enough to resolve. Chicago at this hour feels earned.

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