Through 'Meet-up' I've joined a group of photographers here in Chicago who occasionally meet for photowalks on the weekends - I have to admit that social media, for all well-deserved criticism, provides great advantages for me – in all my previous ‘relocations’ I never was as quickly oriented and connected as this time  - and Google maps proves to be incredibly handy!

However, due to this advantages my very first acquisition here was a power bank, because the phone was sucked empty after half a day...

A few days ago this group met to go to the Lake View Est Art Festival. This sounds a bit bigger than it was in the end, basically it was just a block of little stalls, a stage and something to eat and drink, but there were a lot of very interesting exhibitors among them and the mood was nice and easy - and it definitely took me to an unknown corner of the city.

For this outing I took my new Lensbaby Sol 45. I must confess that I actually bought it the day it was launched without any examination at all. It just sounded like a wonderful mix of the Spark and the Composer Pro (which I was never able to fully appreciate …) - and I have to admit that this lens quickly became my 'always-on lens' and believe me, I really choose carefully what equipment to take on my days off, because I walk about 12 mi.

Here are a few impressions from the photowalk in Lake View taken with the Sol 45.

On my way home there was a really nice sunset I just had to take some pictures of.

As the most of you will know by now, we are a blog circle and the next one in line is

Enjoy his pictures and his Lensbaby-craft.