So, after riding on the Santa Train, we hopped the El back down to Chicago Avenue to take The Girls over to the Hancock Center to look at the funky miniature train thing they have in the lower lobby every year. This has "evolved" over the years to an odd pastiche of commercial nods to local businesses (most notably NOT including the carpet-bagging Macy's next door!), ranging from a store-front done up like Mike Ditka's restaurant down the street to assorted Marvel figurines (conveniently sold by the Elephants, etc. store a few yards across the lobby).The Wife opted out of going to eat with us (The Girls and I had decided that the hotdog stand back over on Chicago ... where I could get 2/$5.99 gryos ... would be a swell idea for dinner), so we parted company at Michigan Ave. We first stopped off to do a little extra Xmas shopping for The Wife, and then cut through the park by the Water Tower. I was struck by the lighting and angles on the Watertower itself, and at the risk of being mistaken for a tourist, I whipped out my camera and took this shot.
I was glad this turned out as well as it did ... I've been having some "issues" with my camera, as there has been a noticeable disconnect between what I think looks like a good shot on the preview screen and what ends up on the computer. I thought I'd gotten some really good shots of the Santa Train and found that (with the exception of the one posted earlier) they were all a blurry mess when shot without flash ... yet 90% of the time if I do use flash the resulting picture is hopelessly washed out. This gets frustrating because the vast majority of the pictures I have of The Girls (unless taken in bright light) are one of the two extremes, blurry from no flash, or ice-white from too much flash!