Chicago Photography Tour

Friday is “check-in day” for most since Saturday’s tour starts early. We leave Friday night open for you to explore the city on your own. For some, this is a first visit to Chicago so we supply a guide with recommendations of things you might want to see that aren’t a part of our weekend photography tour.

We’ll meet at 7:30 AM in downtown Chicago for a quick welcome and orientation meeting. Then we’ll take a 2.5 hour indoor/outdoor walking architecture tour of downtown Chicago. We’ve planned a creative route that weaves through buildings, the busy city streets and even some secret underground shortcuts. You’ll get a new perspective on looking at its famous architecture – both inside and out. We will be shooting an incredible assortment of Instagramable pictures while the tour guide educates you on the history of Chicago from the 1800s until today. At some locations, we will pause to create more artistic compositions while you hear about the events and people that influenced the city. And we will keep this Chicago photography workshop fun and flexible because when you’re in the Windy City, you never know what you’ll see!

The group will break to eat lunch and rest on your own.

After lunch, we board our charter bus to extend our tour of Chicago beyond the downtown Loop area. This will also be a chance to spend more time composing artistic photographs of the city at several locations. A professional photography instructor will accompany us all day so we can spend more time learning techniques including long exposure, bracketing, HDR and more. We will talk about depth of field, leading lines, perspective and how to create a sharp, well-lit cityscape. Bring a tripod as we end the day with some sunset and nighttime shots before returning to our hotel by 7:30pm to grab dinner on your own.

An early morning can result in spectacular photos! We will meet around 5:45 AM to be in Millennium Park by 6am. Our goal: to capture sunrise at Cloud Gate aka “The Bean.” This iconic sculpture is one of Chicago’s biggest attractions and it’s usually swarmed with tourists. Not only will we capture it without crowds in our photos, we’ll also have the best light to feature Michigan Avenue’s wall of skyscrapers in the background. This is a chance to become more comfortable with shutter speed, ISO, white balance and the various settings on your camera. We will continue shooting for almost four hours through Millennium Park, Maggie Daly Plaza and the Lake Michigan waterfront until 10 or 10:30am when we will return to our hotel so you can check out and get to airport or get on the highway. This is our final shoot of the day, so participants can bow out at anytime to conclude shooting and travel home.

* NOTE: For this photography trip. we require you to be reasonably fit in order to casually walk for a few hours from location to location. We also require that you are able to carry your own camera gear, and enter and exit the vehicle without assistance. Please contact us if you have any health concerns that may make a trip challenging and we can answer all questions. When you send your tour deposit, you certify to us that you do not knowingly have any physical or other conditions that would create a risk for yourself or for others on the trip or alter the group’s travel plans.