Red Line, Saturday night, just after Midnight.

Most people believe, just because the novels and movies tell them so, that Sam Spade (and his late partner Miles Archer) lived and worked in San Francisco. But here’s photographic proof that their offices were in Chicago, on Wells Street in Old Town.

I think there’s really just a person inside making beeping noises and handing out $20s.

I went to the Lincoln Park Zoo last week. You can see some photos of the trip in my set here. But what I’m most interested in is this sign right here:

The animals can turn invisible!!! I think I’ll start my own zoo and have a bunch of empty cages with this sign on each one.

Why do I have the feeling that that smokestack used to be just a bit taller?

I suppose if you think about it, there’s no particular reason that one store couldn’t supply both needs. Fish are, after all, one of the few animals that are commonly* both kept as pets and eaten. But it still freaked Erica out. "It’s the same phone number!" she kept shouting.

* I said “commonly”. I don’t need to hear stories of cows as pets and iguanas as food.

A display in the window of the store Foursided.

I love HDR photography… something about the surreal super-saturated colors just makes me happy. And I love Chicago. So without further ado…

Chicago HDRs
Flickr Chicago HDR images

Enjoy!

Chicago photos are starting to roll into the Polling Place Photo Project. As well, Chicago Public Radio is encouraging you to add your election photos to their Flickr group with the tag “election08″ — they’ll be creating a slide show of submissions.

I think I got asked by three different people if I’d given back the special pen. Don’t take the special pen!