Motion Blur, O’Hare Airport – Chicago, Illinois

One of the downsides of living in Austin is that we need more direct flights, especially to international destinations — though it is getting better. We now have directs to London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and several locations in Canada, Mexico, and Central America — unfortunately, nothing to Paris just yet.

So, my wife and I started our trip to Paris as I did to New York City recently, through Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. This scene might look familiar; I made a picture similar to this as I started my NYC series. However, a difference in camera gear enabled more flexibility.

As I mentioned yesterday, I brought one camera and one lens to Paris — the versatile Fujifilm 16-80mm f4 attached to a Fujifilm X-E3. Set to the widest 24mm equivalent, I shot at 1/4 of a second to create motion blur. I made the O’Hare pictures in my New York series using the Fujifilm X100V, which has a fixed 35mm equivalent. And with no image stabilization, I couldn’t make a motion blur picture short of using a tripod.

I also found these giant pictures of famous destinations in what appeared like a low-rent district of O’Hare. I made these at a 56mm equivalent, creating a slight compression effect.

We left Chicago around 6 pm and got into Paris around 9 am. Buckle your seatbelts for a long international series from the old country. It was my wife’s first visit to Europe, and I haven’t been to these locations since I was a teenager more than forty years ago. We packed our ten-day itinerary with the baroque urban beauty of Paris and the natural wonder of Switzerland.

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