Pic Spocket

I was in the area of Chicago last week for a few days for business. I wanted to photograph the famous ‘chrome bean’ (the official name is the ‘Cloud Gate’) of the millennium park for a while, so I rushed downtown after work one day. The bad thing about this time of the year is that days are very short.  By the time I made it there, daylight was vanishing. I had planned for this and brought my tripod.

The park is relatively recent since it was completed in 2004. The cloud gate is a sculpture that is now probably the most well-known of the city. It is nicknamed ‘The Bean’ by the residents due to its shape. The exterior of the sculpture is made of highly polished stainless steel that reflects the sky, the surrounding buildings and visitors. The original estimates of building the sculpture was about 6 $Millions. Final estimated costs: over 23 $Millions. Crazy! This is something really special to see in person.

Here are some of the pictures of the Cloud Gate.

Other pictures from the park:

After taking hundreds of pictures of the park, I walked a little bit downtown and took a few more shots.

Bigger pictures and more in the album lined below.

If you would like to read more about the Millennium Park, please see the links below:

• Millennium Park on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Park
• Cloud Gate on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Gate