chicago
september eighteenth
september eighteenth
one of my favorite forms of photography is the candid shot of complete strangers. because of where i live (in a landscape photographer's dream) i don't get a chance to observe people continually, like most of the world's population. i had a chance to stay in downtown chicago for a few nights (in the palmer house hilton, nice hotel) in march 2002. i took advantage of being close to so many different people doing so many different things by walking around shooting the ultimate equalizer: black and white film.
michigan avenue is a very interesting place; the people that mill around are business people, students, tourists, bums, musicians, everyone and everything. chicago is probably one of the more diverse places in the upper midwest. the weather wasn't bad, enough to not want to have my hands out of my pockets to take the shots but not painfully cold when i did.
i took the pictures from several locations. at times i walked the streets themselves, working the flow of people; this gave some interesting results. however, my favorites (and most of those on this page) are taken from a table inside a coffee shop. the subjects didn't notice me as they passed my viewpoint, so the expressions are more genuine, i think.
i've done the same type of project in minneapolis, but i find the chicago pictures are more interesting to me. maybe the slightly different culture is less familiar and therefore more intriguing; who knows. in any case, here are a few of my results.
