My Kind of Town in HD

November 25, 2013 9:31 PM

Chicago Timelapse Project - Windy City Nights [6:06] - chock full of stunning HD scenes around Chi-town.

You may wish to mute the audio in favor of your own tunes.

posted by planetesimal (11 comments total)

Yeah! This fellow had taken an idea I've ruminated on for some time and turned it out in style. Chicago, what owing to a stereotype of the second city -- flat midwestern expanses, long horizons, broad panoramas, cut with buildings reaching up up up, and a center filled with the inexorable churn of industry and progress -- seems to me a fantastic city to capture in timelapse.

And here I am watching and admiring this idea. I'm enjoying it. This is a great video, exhibiting far more technical skill than I could ever dream of. This is a great synopsis of the city. It's exciting to watch.

As much of a fanboy as I can be of this, drop the needle at 4:30. 10 seconds of timelapse, just beautiful Chicago buildings. With Chicago's wealth of structures, I think there's a similar, architecture-focused, Chicago-specific version of this waiting to be created that doesn't shoulder the same 'commerical for a mid-sized car' vibe that this has.

I wish I was driven (no pun intended!!) enough to create such a sequel to this.
posted by Theophrastus Johnson at 11:27 PM on November 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

This is absolutely beautiful. I wish there was such a video for all countries across the world!
posted by postertext at 1:41 AM on November 26, 2013

Oh, that is amazing. Thank you for this post.
posted by seyirci at 6:44 AM on November 26, 2013

Nice, really, especially the boats at Navy Pier, but it never gets out of downtown (except for shots of the expressway?), which, frankly, is a shame.

Also, anyone know what the building at 0:55 is?
posted by crush-onastick at 7:05 AM on November 26, 2013

Building at 0:55 is Cite Restaurant.
posted by Theophrastus Johnson at 8:13 AM on November 26, 2013

I live in one of the world's great cities, but goddamn, Chicago is one of the world's great cities as well. Such a great place to be from. The older I get, the more of a sad case hometown pride salesman I've become for it.
posted by C.A.S. at 8:51 AM on November 26, 2013

That's pretty snazzy! Great post. Just confirms why I would like to plunk down my little tent there eventually.
posted by neitherly at 8:54 AM on November 26, 2013

Nice idea, but the lens filters ruin it. The whole thing looks too unreal, like a gatefold postcard
posted by MrMerlot at 2:28 PM on November 26, 2013 [1 favorite]

There's a reason why so many people love Chicago, even though the weather suuuuuuuuuuucks.

And yeah, shame they never left downtown. Just to be random, I'd love to see (say) a panorama of Superdawg on the north side, or a worn-down Polish-speaking ("Mowimy Po Polsku!") used car lot.
posted by davejay at 3:01 PM on November 26, 2013

While the tourists sites are definitely part of the city (and seeing them again still makes me miss home), it'd be nice if they spent time in other parts of the city.
posted by NoRelationToLea at 5:54 PM on November 26, 2013

In his project notes, the photographer makes (in my opinion too much of) a point that he was a suburbanite who was intimidated by the city and kind of got over this through completing the project. So, he's not really an ideal tour guide for the neighborhoods of Chicago, but maybe he'll grow into that now. Or maybe we could offer to guide him around; he obviously has the technical chops to photograph about anything we might throw at him.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 7:26 PM on November 26, 2013