Weekly Shooting Excursion IV: Hyde Park

Next up in my weekly shooting excursions was Hyde Park. This was my fourth weekly shooting trip, and by now, I was settling into the routine of weekly shooting, and was more comfortable with being out in public with people around. I’m very diligent with my mask wearing, being outside makes it easier to maintain social distancing, and being around others felt mostly fine. Maybe my comfort level was to blame, but for some reason, the photography gods did not bestow their blessings this day, and I not only was not finding much of interest to shoot, but I didn’t like most of what I actually did shoot. When reviewing my photos at home, I threw out probably 80% of them as not being worth working on. While maybe not the most productive trip photographically, I enjoyed walking through the neighborhood. Hyde Park is always a nice place to visit.

I don’t blame the area. I’ve always loved Hyde Park, it’s probably my favorite Chicago neighborhood. It may be the urban college town vibe. I lived in and around Ann Arbor, Michigan most of my adult life before relocating to Chicago, and have always liked the feel of a college town. When I moved to the city in the late 90’s, I looked at several apartments in Hyde Park before settling on one in a different neighborhood, but have visited the area many, many times over the years I’ve lived in Chicago.

Part of the reason I didn’t get a lot of good shots may have been the area where I shot. I avoided the University of Chicago campus, which is full of beautiful gray neo-Gothic architecture and also some great contemporary buildings, as I had shot there many times before. I also avoided the lakefront, even though there’s a park there that offers great views of downtown Chicago. I focused instead on the northern edge of the neighborhood, from roughly 51st St. (the official border with Kenwood, the neighborhood to the north) to 55th St. I ventured a couple blocks north into Kenwood as well.

When reviewing and post processing my photos later, I found that I didn’t like anything I was doing in color, and ended up processing all my Hyde Park photos as B&W. 

Here are my favorites:

Recent iPhoneography

I haven't just been going on weekly shooting excursions this summer, I've also been making a lot of work with my iPad and various apps. Here are some examples of recent work. All of these started with photos shot from various old magazines, textbooks, etc. using my iPad's camera, and were worked with various apps. I mainly use Procreate for the overall design and construction, but often other apps are involved as well. I use Snapseed to clean up the photos and do basic post production, for example. My love of both mid-century design and contemporary Japanese graphic design are evident in these. I do not consider myself a graphic designer, but I am influenced by design. I don't consider these collage, although there is a collage aspect to some of them. They don't look like or share much of an aesthetic with most iPhonography I've seen either. Not sure what that makes them!

Weekly Shooting Excursion III: Little Village

My third get out of the house shooting excursion was a fun one. I went to Little Village, a neighborhood on Chicago’s southwest side. Like the nearby Pilsen neighborhood, Little Village is a largely Mexican area, with over 80% of the residents of Mexican descent. Unlike Pilsen, it’s not gentrifying, and the growing hipster presence in Pilsen is replaced here with a sturdy working class vibe.  It has a vibrant street scene, with lots of street vendors along the main commercial area on 26th St. Unlike my first two recent photo excursions, which were pretty quiet, there were a decent number of people out when I was there. This was the first time in months that I’d been someplace and seen people out in the street, and while it felt a little odd at first, I got used to it pretty quickly.

I chose Little Village because I like the area, and while I hadn’t shot there before, I knew it would be photogenic. I was also hoping that 26th St. would be closed. Chicago had been formulating a plan to close certain streets to traffic, in order to allow restaurants to safely sit people outdoors during the pandemic. Several blocks of 26th St. were on the closure list, and I figured being able to safely wander into the street to shoot would make it easier to compose good shots. However, when I got there, I found the street open, even though right before I left I had read online that it would be closed. This was probably due to the recent demonstrations and looting. Several storefronts along 26th St. were boarded up, and I later read online that there was some looting in the area. Chicago being close to moving to stage 4 in it’s pandemic plan, which would allow limited indoor seating in restaurants, may also have been a contributing factor. At any rate, the non stop traffic along 26th St. made shooting a little challenging at times, but I still got some good shots.  Side streets were much quieter, I was able to get some shots without trying to time them between cars. 

Here are my favorites from this shoot.

Weekly Shooting Excursion II: Rainy Blue Island Night

A few days after I pushed myself out the door to shoot along Olde Western Ave. in Blue Island, I went on my second 'make myself go out shooting to stay sane during the pandemic' shoot. This one was spontaneous-rain storms moved in to the area right as it was getting dark, and I love shooting in a city on a rainy night, so I grabbed my camera and returned to Blue Island. This time, I stuck to the downtown area, a stretch of Western Ave. a few blocks long. I’d done this same thing-shooting in Blue Island on a rainy night-almost exactly two years previously, and while I didn’t want to repeat myself, I knew I’d get good shots there, and it’s close to home. Comparing these to the photos I shot two years ago, I’m pretty happy. There was more rain during this shoot, leading to wetter streets and more light reflecting around. I think I’m also better at post processing now, especially minimizing the annoying orange-yellow hue produced by the street lights in many cities (Chicago is in the middle of a multi-year plan to replace all it’s street lights with LED lights, which are more energy efficient and more neutral in color, so that might not be an issue much longer).

Here are my favorites from this shooting excursion. 

Weekly Shooting Excursion I: Olde Western

With the world on various stages of lockdown due to the Covid-19 virus, getting out of the house for any reason has been difficult and often stressful.  Like much of the world’s population, I’ve been home since mid March, often leaving the house just for groceries once a week. This has hit hard for me as an artist and photographer. Getting out of the house and being in a different space, be it a neighborhood walk or more extensive travel, has always been important for me. It recharges my batteries and invigorates my studio work. In addition, my work has become more photo based and less collage/mixed media over the past few years, and my photography has become more street-based (although its emphasis on the built environment is not what many, including myself, would consider street photography).

With travel not being possible, vacation plans cancelled, and with teaching duties finishing for the summer, I knew I had to figure something out, and decided to push myself out of the house at least once a week to shoot. This wasn’t a new idea, for years I’ve visited various parts of the city for the sole purpose of shooting. I live in Chicago, which is a fairly photogenic city with a variety of shooting experiences available, from downtown skyscrapers to commercial districts away from the city center, and affluent, well kept areas to rundown, boarded up areas well into their decline. Lots of photographic potential which I’ve explored often. 

What was new was making it a weekly occurrence, and having to push myself out the door. Weeks of seclusion and lack of knowledge about the virus had me questioning how safe it was to be out in public, and I had concerns about how others would react to seeing someone wandering around with cameras when we’re supposed to be isolating. Luckily, those concerns have lessened significantly (if not completely ended) as I’ve gone out on a few photo shoots. I wear a mask, avoid others (a natural inclination as a slightly introverted person), and try to appreciate and fully experience the area I’m in while shooting. Stay at home orders were lifted for Chicago in early June, and as long as I’m being careful, I’ve felt mostly comfortable going out.

My first summer shoot was on a scorching hot Memorial Day weekend. As a test, I picked an area I figured would be pretty quiet. I went to Olde Western Ave. in Blue Island, a suburb directly south of Chicago. I’ve shot in Blue Island many, many times. It’s close to home, and has a lot of older buildings in its commercial district, which I generally favor when shooting. On all these shooting trips, however, I’d never made it to Olde Western Ave. It’s a small street, maybe three blocks in length, isolated from Blue Island’s main commercial area by the Cal-Sag shipping canal and a large bridge built in the early 1960’s which rerouted traffic.  It’s a cute, quiet street with a small town feel, and these days is largely comprised of bars and restaurants (all closed when I visited). I shot along this street and some of the side streets, then walked a few blocks south, where Olde Western rejoins Western Avenue and becomes more of an industrial corridor.

Here are some highlights from that shoot.

ハイキュー

untitled

iPhoneography, 2020

I think I was channeling Alvin Lustig when I made this. I love mid century graphic design, and every once in a while I make something that shows that influence pretty strongly.

This started as a column of grainy B&W photos in an old sports instruction textbook. I shot that page with my iPad, and used iColorama and Procreate to make the piece.

I was thinking of titling it ハイキュー (Haikyuu), after the popular volleyball themed sports anime, but that seemed a little too cheesy, so I left it untitled. Cheesiness in a post title is fine!

the orb 4

the orb

iPhoneograpy, 2020

the orb

iPhoneograpy, 2020

the orb

iPhoneograpy, 2020

The final pieces (I promise!) for this spontaneous mini-series. Moving on to other things, even if I find more bowling photos.