A pair of strangers crosses the street towards us, eyeing curiously the mass of photographers, cameras, and tripods all facing in unison down the street.

“What are y’all taking pictures of?” one approaches.

Lowering my camera, “So, today’s the Chicagohenge, which means that….”

Twice a year around the autumn and spring equinox, the sun crosses the horizon at almost exactly east and west. With Chicago’s streets built along the cardinal directions, this can make some unique alignments between the morning/evening sun and the city. The name of the event comes from the portmanteau of Stonehenge, the English structure which was thought to be used as a solar calendar, and the city name, Chicago.

This semester, potentially my last spring in Illinois for the next couple years, I thought I’d make the trip to see the Chicagohenge, at least once, while it was still convenient. In case you ever decide to go, here are some tidbits from my sunset excursion:

Relative to the date, I’d say you have around 2-3 days before and after the actual day of the equinox to see the Chicagohenge. Of course, you should look for clear skies in the east (for sunrise) or the west (for sunset) for an enjoyable experience.

Getting there is ultimately up to preference, and I had no trouble arriving by car. Parking garages in downtown are fairly affordable, and using SpotHero made life a little more convenient. 

The general consensus online is that the best streets to view the Chicagohenge are along Michigan Avenue starting from Van Buren Street. Although I only got to Adams/Wabash (Willis Tower is on this street), the view westward is supposedly good up until Kinzie St, north of Chicago river.

Although sunset wasn’t until ~7:00 PM, I would suggest getting to the area at least an hour early. Golden hour starts usually around 30 minutes before sunset, and with the additional time you can scout some compositions. As a forewarning, there will be tons of other photographers there, crowding the sidewalks and overpasses. If you decide to shoot from Michigan Avenue, the cross-traffic will inevitably intrude into some shots. Puddles and pedestrians are also your friend here, as they could provide some interesting street pictures. Another factor to consider are the trains on the L-Loop, which passes through the streets in this vantage point. They could be an additional component to the image, or an obstruction to the sun.

The light really starts hitting the streets, casting dramatic shadows and giving an orange glow around everything, around 10 minutes before sundown. Even after the sun crosses the horizon, you’ll still have some light to work with. 

Technically speaking, when shooting into the sun, I would try to expose for the sky instead of the streets, since the shadows are generally easier to recover in post. In contrast, a blown out sky is beyond help (except for if you want to use Photoshop). If applicable, I would also set my camera shutter release to a medium burst to compensate for the fast-changing scenery of cars and pedestrians. To get sunstars, you’ll need to stop down to a higher f-stop number and adjust your ISO and shutter speed accordingly.

With only fifteen minutes until sunset, I was faced with two decisions: should I stay where I was on Michigan Avenue, and get the same perspective of the Chicagohenge as everyone else, or venture into the streets for other compositions? Risking it for the biscuit, I packed my bag and half-skipped half-walked a few blocks into the city, racing against the dying light. In between nearly getting run over by cars from kneeling smack-dab in the middle of the road to finding a massive puddle, I was able to find a number of keepers from the venture. Not to mention, I met a popular photographer. 

There’s gotta be a moral here, right? Fortune favors the bold?

Ultimately, you’ll be wanting more time, more shots, more locations, than Earth’s rotation will allow for. Of course, you could always return to the city throughout that week or even come back in six months. But, with the limited time you have for each evening, I say, chase the light. As I learned that Sunday, between staying or going, go! We often regret the things of inaction rather than action.

Firstly, why bother with a logo? For my sports photography, I supposed that having a logo would help people associate my work with a name, a brand. A mark in the corner of my images would serve this purpose while also helping to remedy the situations in which I’m not credited for the photos. Also, let’s be honest: having a logo, a visual identification of something, just sounded appealing.

Functionally, I also needed to consider the applications and style of the logo. For the most part, I would need something flexible, usable for various sizes and purposes, be it for a watermark in front of various backgrounds, profile picture, a stinger at the end of highlight reels, or even physically on stickers. This would most likely mean that my logo would be monochrome, with any text separable from the actual mark.

Stylistically, I knew that I wanted something more symbolic in nature, but also that I’d need a primary version that included my name; I’m not yet as famous as Nike or Apple, unfortunately. 

Before putting pencil to paper, I looked to compile some inspiration, creating a moodboard, if you will. Notice the geometric, minimalistic theme across all the references – I guess that’s just what spoke to me.

Yes, that is a Google Drawings canvas. From there, I started to sketch some designs in a notebook. On principle, a logo should convey ideas relating to the brand. So, for me, this meant somehow communicating notions of sports, photography, action, etc, while avoiding being cliche. For example, incorporating aperture shutters or image brackets just seemed textbook “stock.” I started with an arrangement of my initials and iterated from there, trying to find unique ways to assemble K and X. I also wanted to utilize someway, somehow that the triangular nature of the two letters, and their similarities typographically:

 

Amidst the many terrible drawings, I marked a few designs that I liked, and finalized on one that found a nice balance between form (visual appeal, essentially) and function. (Can you find the drawing of the one I picked?) After choosing a design, I moved to Adobe Illustrator, a vector graphics software. Because of how geometric the design was, I was able to create the logo from scratch. Otherwise, I would have uploaded a scanned copy and traced it out using the pen tool. At this point, I also tinkered with alternate versions of the logo and selected a typeface for the text.

After the mark was finalized, I created different lockups of the logo, for various applications (the all-white artboards are where the logo is in white against a transparent background):

And, viola!

** After almost two years with the logo, I have some irks with the logo: I think that the idea of sports photography, or at least creativity, could be communicated better, and that the design is somewhat too straightforward. Maybe time for a change?

Some lessons:

• Before my first sketches, I had attempted to design a logo straight from Adobe Illustrator. The designs were too simple, and I was somewhat hindered in creating designs by my own unfamiliarity with the software in comparison to good ol’ Ticonderoga. Don’t let the medium hinder your process.
• A lot of sketches led to dead ends, but I forced myself to be okay with these throwaways. “You can’t have good ideas unless you’re willing to generate a lot of bad ones.”
• Being somewhat novice to Illustrator, finding new tools and shortcuts saved time in the long run as I worked through the design. Understanding the fundamentals pays dividends.