Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge & Plaza Restoration

chicago skyway toll bridge

Chicago skyway toll bridge

For behind the scenes + shoot details, visit the APALMANAC M+M feature:  Highway To The Danger Zone: Husband / Wife Team Ryan + Sarah Miller Pull Off Incredible Photos of the Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge

transportation steel bridges photography

transportation steel bridges photography

chicago-skyway-toll

Chicago Skyway Toll

transportation construction restoration

transportation construction restoration

restored-chicago-skyway-traffic-night

Restored Chicago skyway traffic night

Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge Plaza restoration

Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge Plaza restoration

chicago-roadway-infrastructure-photography

Chicago roadway infrastructure photography

toll-booth-chicago-skyway

Toll booth Chicago Skyway

chicago-civil-engineer-transportation-photos

Chicago civil engineer transportation photos

chicago-skyway-artistic-road-bridge-infrastructure-pictures

Chicago skyway artistic road bridge infrastructure pictures

chicago infrastructure photographer

chicago infrastructure photographer

led-red-neon-sign-stainless-steel

LED red neon sign stainless steel

roadway-sign-transportation

roadway sign transportation

 

skyway-art-deco-transportation-toll-canopy-restoration

skyway art-deco transportation toll canopy restoration

chicago-bridge-photographer

Chicago bridge photographer

aerial-pictures-expressway-toll-lanes-traffic

aerial pictures expressway toll lanes traffic

chicago-skyway-bridge

Chicago Skyway Bridge

industrial-chicago-bridge-photographer

Industrial Chicago bridge photographer

chicago-skyway-bridge-night

Chicago skyway bridge night

steel-bridge-night-transportation

steel bridge night transportation

Nationwide architectural photographers, we shoot a variety of structures and construction.  For this project, Miller+Miller had the opportunity to capture photography of the Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge, canopy, and plaza restoration photographing the toll road’s infrastructure construction completion in photographs.  Not long after the Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge & Plaza restoration’s construction completion, we scheduled photography of the famous iconic, neon sign gateway and high-bridge entrance into the city of Chicago. 

The marketing department from the Skyway inquired to Miller + Miller, looking to hire an architectural photographer to capture structural photography with photos showcasing the site’s update which preserved the original vintage art-deco design of the toll plaza structure and infrastructure photography highlighting the modern day new technological improvements. The architectural photography project incorporated a variety of shots including aerial drone photos, day, dusk images, and night photographs of the historic restoration of the Chicago Skyway plaza, LED toll lane signage, modern signs along the roadway, stainless steel tollbooth, steel canopy, neon letter signage, portraits of employees working in toll lanes, and scenic pictures of the high-bridge from the roadway for the organization’s press releases, marketing, website, and advertising photo needs. 

The project included photographing one of the Chicago area’s major transportation route and travel hubs.  The Skyway serves a link between roadways, tollways and expressways within Illinois, Indiana and Michigan midwestern states while traveling to downtown Chicago from the Southside.   The Chicago Skyway is a 7.8 mile long toll road built by the city of Chicago in 1958 to connect the Dan Ryan Expressway to the Indiana Toll Road.  In 2005, Chicago’s Skyway became the first U.S. privatization of a toll road in the country.  The Chicago Skyway Tollway is currently operated & maintained by the Skyway Concession Company, LLC and was purchased in 2016 by three Canadian Pension Funds – OMERS Infrastructure, CPP Investment Board, and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.  

Since 2005, the Skyway Concession Company, LLC has invested over 120 million dollars on transportation industry improvements to the Skyway, including an expansive technology build-out to allow for electronic payment of tolls and ability of E-ZPass / I-PASS payment.  The ability to combine the sixty-year-old architecture of the canopy with the latest tolling technology is “a testament to the progressive and versatile nature of the original toll plaza design,” said Skyway Concession Company CEO in a statement to Curbed Chicago.  The Chicago Skyway canopy restoration project, led by SOM, carefully returns the structure to its original form while modernizing its tolling technology. Old cameras, antennae, and other attachments are replaced by new, streamlined technology for more convenient and efficient toll services, plus LED lighting, and easy-to-read digital signage.  According to SOM, the canopy design incorporates photovoltaic panels to provide 100 percent of the renewable clean energy required to run the toll plaza. As communications and transportation technology evolved, the toll plaza had been continuously retrofitted with new devices and fittings.  This recent modernization no longer was impeding service speed and traffic flow.  

The original 1958 construction design of the Skyway’s toll plaza canopy was described as “ultra-modern”. Architectural photographs of the renovation not only included highlighting infrastructure, but also architectural structural renovation design which kept the familiar toll plaza eye-catching mid-century design elements from the historic, original construction design. Car drivers along the roadway today are still invited with the 1958-styled, historic, classic red sign mounted neon letters which spell out “Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge” atop the historically modernized piece of elegant midcentury infrastructure.

In addition, the architectural photography shoot project included capturing day images and night photos of the 1⁄2-mile-long steel truss bridge, known as the “High Bridge” crosses the Calumet River and Calumet Harbor.  A major harbor for large-sized industrial ships, the Skyway bridge’s construction is an impressive 650 feet long and provides for 125 feet of vertical clearance. The photography shoot focused on angles of not only the Skyway’s soaring very HIGH overhead steel bridge & roadway, but also artistic road, expressway and infrastructure pictures with shots of the bridge incorporating the area views of the Lake Michigan shoreline, the Chicago skyline in the distance, and creative aerial drone photographs of the roadway transportation system.

Learn more about The Chicago Skyway at www.chicagoskyway.org.  The Skyway project’s architectural renovation design was led by Architect SKIDMORE, OWINGS & MERRILL LLP. Project engineer and civil engineering of the famed Chicago Skyway Bridge’s design and construction by contractors Beier Engineering. Miller + Miller Architectural Photography was thankful to photograph the renovation project providing marketing construction images of the updated Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge & Plaza Restoration project.  

Searching for a photographer to capture images for your organization’s marketing needs? Contact Miller + Miller with your project description.  Miller + Miller are Chicago-based, Nationwide traveling interior, architectural photographers, & UAS drone pilot licensed with commercial construction photography services abilities. Visit our Portfolio to view additional images or the quick links below:

Chicago Drone Photographer

View Our Drone Photography Images Portfolio Section

commercial-builder-architect-marketing-portfolio-images

See More Commercial Construction & Architect Marketing Photos


Chicago South Loop Architecture Condo Photography

chicago architectural photographer

chicago skyline photography by water lake michigan

skyscraper chicago developer architectural photography

chicago travel yacht marina boating photography studio

chicago condo real estate photography

chicago lake michigan development photography

chicago landmarks buckingham fountain photography visitors

chicago blue cross blue shield high-rise architectural photography

chicago yachts lighthouse lake michigan travel leisure photographer

chicago real estate condo photography

south loop real estate photographer chicago

real estate photography studio chicago loop

chicago west loop condo for sale photographs

luxury real estate condo tour photographer

chicago high rise balcony photos

chicago bathroom photography interior home tour

new construction chicago condo photography

chicago condo marketing photography

chicago interiors photographer decorating designers

interior home chicago condo photography

chicago luxury interior home photographer

chicago apartment loft architectural photographer

penthouse condo lake michigan view photography

chicago real estate photographer

chicago penthouse architectural photography

chicago real estate photography

chicago travel life style boating photographer

chicago development real estate photography

chicago condo amenities pool photography

soldier field aerial photography

museum park chicago aerial photography

chicago field museum aerial photography

adler planetarium shed aquarium aerial pictures

panoramic chicago architectural photography

If you impress your audience with great imagery, your are making a great first impression. Great first impressions draw the consumer in, often leading them to narrowing down their options quicker, and eventually lead to decision making and closed sales. When selling architecture or real estate, the first photo a potential buyer sees of a penthouse condo, luxury home or apartment, should be a strong representation of the community and the home.  Less-than-flattering pictures can turn buyers off and lead to lonely open houses.

We enjoy our loyal clients who come back to us for repeat interior and exterior photography projects.  One client mentioned after implementing their first home’s photos, a new home buyer and customer mentioned “upon first seeing this amazing photo, I knew I wanted to live in life in that photo and enjoy that lifestyle.”   Through the use of photography and building a company’s corporate image or company brand with photographs, developers, builders, marketing experts and more commonly say establishing a brand can create an impact on your audience.

As Chicago architectural photographers, we are capable of not only interior and exterior home photography such as the photographs previewed above, but we offer the option to provide photos beyond the single property or typical home photos.  Often we are commissioned to not only capture indoor and outdoor home photos of our client’s personal residence or the agent’s listed home, whether being a residential location such as a rooftop penthouse, loft, condominium, or luxury townhome or photos of a commercial property, photography of a new condo construction project in Chicago, multi unit suburban or downtown development, or investment property, but we are happy to also provide and offer an option to upgrade our services with extra architectural photography items such as aerial photography, environment architecture photographs, lifestyle photography, nearby location landmarks, travel and leisure photography.

For this project, we photographed a two bedroom, two bath luxury condo located  in Chicago’s South Loop neighborhood in a high-rise tower within the One Museum Park West Tower IV development.  With it’s ideal and prime development location on Lake Michigan, this waterfront location overlooks Chicago’s Grant Park, The Field Museum, Adler Planetarium, Solider Field Stadium, boats, yachts and Chicago Burnham Harbor.  We talked about how the One Museum Park West development offers homebuyers not only to buy an amazing property, but they are also buying a lifestyle and the nearby urban community which goes along with living in the South Loop neighborhood.  Our client decided to add on a day of Chicago architecture photographs which was beyond the real estate interior and exterior photography.  Our architecture focus was to capture lifestyle photos all within viewing distance of the penthouse condo’s balcony.  Locations included a few City landmarks viewed from the terrace such as Buckingham Fountain, pictures of the museums, Chicago yacht club, aerial photos of Soldier Field, and a full exterior skyscraper building photographs from Grant Park showcasing the properties proximity to the nearby Loop and business corridor.  This South Loop development is ideally located close for commuters into the Loop, with easy travel to downtown commercial and corporate buildings.  Within the Park West Tower IV building, we captured photos of the high-rise building’s pool and resident amenities.  The extra photographs beyond the real estate and luxury condo photography home tour pictures were a perfect compliment to help illustrate and sell a lifestyle photographically.

So whether your marketing a metropolitan landmark, looking to feature a destination or travel location through photography, or selling a property, while searching online real estate agents, sales and marketing departments, online listing services, and web designers all agree, great imagery provides to the seller or end user a great impression.  We look forward to your contact and please send us an email so we can learn more about your travel photography project, your future development either underway in construction or completed, or your luxury home or residence’s marketing photography needs.  We travel often, so our capabilities are not limited to the Northern Illinois metropolitan area.  We are available to travel to a number of destinations in urban regions, cities and towns around the U.S., and occasionally outside of the Nation for International projects.


Privacy Settings
We use cookies to enhance your experience while using our website. If you are using our Services via a browser you can restrict, block or remove cookies through your web browser settings. We also use content and scripts from third parties that may use tracking technologies. You can selectively provide your consent below to allow such third party embeds. For complete information about the cookies we use, data we collect and how we process them, please check our Privacy Policy
Youtube
Consent to display content from - Youtube
Vimeo
Consent to display content from - Vimeo
Google Maps
Consent to display content from - Google