Last weekend, the Chicago Architecture Foundation held its second annual Open House event. This event offers access to over 150 buildings across Chicago. Over the weekend, I visited ten of the sites. Although I've lived in the Chicago suburbs for most of my life, I had never stepped foot in any of these buildings with the exception of the Chicago Cultural Center!

1. Oriental Theater
2. Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University
3. Civic Opera House
4. City Hall
5. Apollo's 2000 Theater
6. Our Lady of Sorrows Basilica
7. First United Methodist Church (Chicago Temple Building)
8. St. Adalbert Church
9. Thalia Hall
10. Chicago Cultural Center

While photographing these locations, I found a wide angle lens and tripod to be critical tools. Nearly all of my pictures were captured with the Nikon D800 and Nikon 14-24 2.8 lens. And, nearly all of the pictures were high dynamic range (HDR) images that consisted of five exposures. Although the D800 files offer a more dynamic range than previous sensors, I found that the HDR images retained even more detail in the highlights and shadows. For example, in the images of City Hall, the HDR versions retained detail in the shiny marble arches, whereas the single frame version with the best overall exposure failed to retain such detail.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Tiffany glass dome ceiling Our Lady of Sorrows Basilica Civic Opera House Auditorium Theatre St. Adalbert Church

City Hall