After many years a had the chance to travel back to Chicago.

Surprisingly the city (downtown area that is) hasn’t changed much. In fact besides one new high rise and one less Virgin Mega-store, everything was just where I left it seven years ago.

Similar to my morning adventures in Paris, I used the jet-lag induced early wake-up to walk around the city during sunrise. Again I noticed how very short the blue hour actually is.

Long exposure times can be quite a challenge when standing on a shaking bridge. The slight blur in these pictures has to be contributed to me not realizing the effect of a 10 ton truck on the bridge 😉

My favorite view of the Chicago city skyline is still from the north, looking back to Oak Street Beach and the Hancock tower. While the last two images may indicate some light snow and an easy winter, this one truly shows the harsh conditions to be encountered at 5am.

Wondering around in the freezing cold (-10 °F, or -20 °C – with a very notable windchill on top) I felt pretty uninspired but got one or two pictures making the effort worth while.

For example this bus stop advertisement.

Besides the pretty neat advertisement idea I particularly liked the way the light literally flows from the bus stop outwards onto the sidewalk and onto the wall of the building.