I’ve been too busy as of late to keep up with the film that’s been shot, this scan is from some weeks back. Not sure when I will get to the lab next but there’s more to come. This is Adam’s St. near Canal…actually not very far at all from where the last photo was shot, though on a different day.
5 points goes to the first person who can guess which stop this is. (The top right of the image gives it away).
On another note, I was out in a different area photographing for a different project I’m exploring and a Motel owner threatened to call the police on me and demanded my ID. 2 for 2 in causing a commotion on recent shoots. I took the time to inform him that since I was on public property he would be wasting everyone’s time and no way will I show my ID to any person that asks, which he didn’t seem too thrilled about but that’s why we have the First Amendment. Growing up a skateboarder and then turning into a photographer can give you the feeling that someone is always going to try and get you in trouble for what you are doing, even if you’re not doing anything wrong. At least it keeps you on your toes…
Today, a guy told me if he was in one of my pictures he would break my f@$%$! face. He was wearing scrubs. I wasn’t looking at him.
Awhile back I’d asked Genevieve from the Chicago band Company of Thieves if I could maybe do some portraits of her. I’ve actually been photographing more musicians lately, both because I request to and I’ve gotten a couple commissions here and there, which is great because I love this work. Anyways, after some months of back and forth we finally managed to get a few hours together as she caught some time at home before leaving for some shows in Europe and then going to California to record some new music (our first attempt was foiled by car problems). If you’re in the Chicago area and you haven’t seen this band live…well, you gotta go.
Anyways, so I recently got a few frames scanned in. We went to a park that she used to frequent as a kid growing up in the city.
There’s really not much that can compare to walking around the city on a beautiful day with some great music in the headphones, and simply watching people walk by.
FOUND from Bojo Mcfly on Vimeo.
I recently spent a night acting as a DP for a short film my buddy Doug Seok was making. We shot it in one night over the course of some hours in the loop downtown Chicago. It’s pretty eerie how empty those bustling blocks get on a Tuesday night. I’ve always sorta been a holdout on the whole multimedia and or video thing…worrying about sound and pictures and video and all that at the same time…meh…it just dilutes things, or at least for me it does. But, there was a sound guy, and no worry about stills, and I have this fancy camera that does video too, so it turned out to be a good time to try it out. The film is very simple and was largely an experiment in many ways for all of us, but it was fun.
I recently got a welcome piece of mail informing me that I’d been among the beneficiaries of this year’s Puffin Foundation grant for my Bryan House project. It’s a modest sum but will help me put the finishing touches on the self-published book and hopefully result in either a limited print or book run that will be sold with proceeds going to the Bryan House. More to come as I get it figured out. For now, thanks Puffin Foundation, and thanks for encouragement. With grant writing, sometimes you write and write and work and work and wonder if it’s all going to go anywhere. Especially to someone like myself who is fairly new to the process, it’s nice to know that some success can be found if you look and work enough.
I’ve been spending a bit more time on the street lately, trying to make sense of the mess of the public. More to come as I spend much of my summer in the loop.
