the 312 hole

Click the image for a much larger view. You can buy a framed print over on ImageKind – here.

I would love to get some feedback on everyone’s favorite panorama of the Chicago Skyline. I’m posting a couple of new ones and a few old ones and putting them to a vote. I’ve had some people give me feedback already, but I thought it would be fun to try out a poll on the site – which I’ve never done before. Let me know your thoughts.

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As I mentioned before, I spent a few hours out by the Adler Planetarium on a cold evening in early February. This was my first experiment with the creation of panoramic images, which are huge files composed of stitching together several landscape or portrait-oriented photos. For a first attempt, I’m pretty happy with the results, and I hope to try again when the weather isn’t so miserable – although I do like the bit of snow in the corner of the first image, which adds some depth and a chill to the image.

View a larger version of this image on a black background.

View a larger version of this image on a black background.

After a week and a half out of Chicago, I’m heading back later this evening. We spent 7 days down in Costa Rica at Recreo – a gorgeous 63-acre development in the northwest corner of the Guanacaste province with private villas and genuine people. I have plenty of photos from this trip, which I will start to post once I’m back at home.

For now, here are three different shots of the Chicago skyline as the sun slowly set one cold night in early February. I sat out in the cold for way too long that evening, but ended up with some good shots of the city. I have some actual panorama shots that I’ve created, which I will post after I sort through all of the Costa Rica pictures.

Sunset Cessna Flight – Chicago – 6/29/10 from Jeff Trost on Vimeo.

Earlier this week, I was fortunate enough to ride shotgun in a Cessna 172 with one of my buddies. The night couldn’t have been better – gorgeous sunset, clear skies and little wind. We took off around 7:45PM and were airborne for the duration of the sunset. We cruised about two miles out over the lake at around 1,000 feet (still below the Willis Tower). Once we made it to Gary, Indiana, we did a couple landings and headed back north past the skyline again. By this time, the sun was down and the city was pretty lit up. Unfortunately, it’s pretty difficult to get good night shots in a bumpy Cessna at night, but we did our best. On our way back, we could see the lights on at Wrigley for the game, but couldn’t get too close because they shut down a big chunk of the airspace during games. Back at the airport, we did a couple touch-and-gos, which were pretty fun in the little plane. All around, it was an amazing experience.

I also made a little 5 minute video with some footage of the takeoff, touch-and-go and landing. You can check it out here on Vimeo.

A few of my favorites are below, and there are a handful of others over on Flickr. I can’t say it’s easy to shoot through the windows on the Cessna, but I think we managed to snap some solid shots.