Bleak? You succeeded:) But whoa, brilliantly. Don't know what your client/customer was after but they got icy-cold and bleak. Can a bad picture be taken in Chicago? Even with a 2MP point-and-shoot? Love it. Can we go in now and warm up please? Brrrrrrrrr. Composition, light, grain, fascinating foreground...it is all there. An anahata.c original.

I've been freezing all day, Mark, and this isn't helping; bleak indeed! The dank low light and brownish hue really gets the feeling across. Perfect execution!

Brrrrrrr.... Looks like a really cold day in Chi-town.. But still, it has it's own desolate beauty. I can almost see a post-apo sci-fi thriller beginning with this opening scene. A great shot, Mark!

It's bleak all right, but there's something about the contrast of the gray buildings and the grungy brown lake that's really compelling. Your lake is quite capable of making itself known!!

BRRRR! My first foray into digital was with a 2MP. I loved it. Then I splurged on a 5MP that even had a lithium ion battery!

IOt's an awesome image my friend... really AWESOME !!!

What the Scots call 'dreek'! Which term, sadly , has become used for a quite other meaning in urban speak. This is a startlingly bone-chilling photo, Mark. I trust your client was thrilled to the marrow.

Looks ver ybeauty my friend!!!!!Bravissimo!V:DDD.Hugsxx Whylma

It looks like from the get go your eye has always had an heir of magic lovely capture mark!!

Well, for once your usually beautiful city doesnt looks very inviting here, but I know, it is not because of the old 2mp Nikon you got many years back. It is how you wanted it to look. Even with that camera you always could make little wonders and here you go again. This has a special mood, as it is a strange and long gone city in a totally frozen world. Fabulous. :)

cold, dark and mysterious are a few words that come to mind when I see this. there is a deep mysterious story going on in the city and we are forced to stay away by the cold rushing water at our feet... well done!

marvelous

Bleak & Beautiful

I guess bleak, like anything else, is in the eye of the beholder.

Just look at the Hancock, anchoring the entire shot, with those two ice-covered whatever-they-ares in the foreground in a supporting anchoring role. The triangular composition is brilliant. Then go back to the Hancock again (and again and again), and look at the way it holds the city together as the apex of the triangle. There are shorter buildings between (more about that in a minute), but beginning with the Hancock, there are progressively shorter "tall" buildings as we go out to the right and to the left. Now look at the buildings as if they were musical notes on a staff, and you can SEE how the city would sound if you played it! If you went from the far left to the Hancock, you would have a sort of bouncy, syncopated sound with this huge, heavy crescendo once you got there, and then these trilling, almost flute-like progressions moving out and to the right. All the while you've got these waves in the bass clef coming toward you endlessly. Frozen, but more powerful because of that.

And the colors! Every neutral from almost black (the Hancock again) to navy to tan and gray, with the pale and buff ice under it all and the moody pale white and lavender and blue of the sky bringing it up from above. And did you realize some of those buildings are verging on being invisible? So now you've got parts of this fading in and out of time and/or space and/or reality, on top of moving around musically and having these color-coordinated chords.

And the Hancock. Sheesh! The massive massif of north-of-the-river Chicago. I know you didn't put it there, but you exploit it shamelessly, and why wouldn't you? It's fabulous!

This has so much life, movement, sound, excitement ... and they wanted BLEAK? And they PAID you for this, when they said bleak and you gave them THIS???

You must be the best salesman in the world, my friend.

All the above, Mark, since everything that had to be said, has been said.