ƒ/1.7 | 1/20 | ISO1600
Eric & Kyle | Chicago | 2017
60
ƒ/1.7 | 1/200 | 400
I took this photo with my Leica about a month into owning the camera. It was very new in my hands still, so details about the camera that I know now were still things I was learning then. Take, for example, when the aperture ring is set to Auto, the camera defaults to a 1.7 f stop. Certainly not an issue, but definitely a bit annoying to not be aware of when using a 28mm lens that has a rather shallow depth of field when it is at 1.7. As such, the above photograph is sharp as can be in the smallest section of the frame. Still, I kinda prefer the mistakes to the perfections and this one fits that bill.
I remember when they first opened Millennium Park that Anish Kapoor had such a hissy fit about letting people take photos of his work that if you had any camera on you, security would come and give you all this total BS about how you can’t photograph the sculpture and that it was strictly forbidden to sell the image if you somehow got a shot in before they’d come hassle you. This was in 2003 (classic Chicago delays causing Millennium Park to open 3 years late) and pre-dated smart phones by 4 years. I really want to know what Anish Kapoor thinks of this whole situation now, knowing that “The Bean” (not its real name, ha ha!) is the most photographed spot in the entire city.
44
ƒ/4.9 | 1/60 | ISO800
44 | Nov. 4th, 2008
Why not a throwback to a time when things were looking totally different for the world? I remember this day so well: I was working the floor at the Ralph Lauren Rugby store in Chicago constantly checking the computer for updates as to how the election was unfolding. I had recently returned from spending the summer in East Hampton, New York watching the richest community I’d ever lived in look on in horror as their August vacations were being cancelled left and right as the banks on Wall Street were collapsing in an epic worldwide economic meltdown.
You might not remember, but Obama spent the first 10 months of 2008 campaigning on changing the world based on one word: Hope. He represented the next sea change that my generation was desperately clamouring for. We had been raised in the 1990s with so much wealth dripping around us, it was a huge shock that our educations were being sold at prices that were going to saddle us with debt for the same amount of time a mortgage would by the same people that our parents told us to vote for who happened to love sending our peers off to die in wars that were sold on lies.
Obama was a new thing. A chance for the USA to go forward into this economic crisis and re-write how we would rule the world as the greatest country on earth. Obama declared, “This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.”
Looking back we know it took only 3 years for Obama to forget he included in his speech was this passage: “Let us remember that, if this financial crisis taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers.” Because it only took 3 year for the Millennial segment of Obama’s movement to move on from him and become Occupy Wall Street. Had Obama listened to this movement, where would we be now?
But I digress, I was working on the sales floor of Rugby, checking updates and simultaneously trying to get my ticket to be at this historic event. After countless disappointing refreshes of the site, I checked in with my mom and found that one of her co-workers had gotten a ticket that wouldn’t be used and I jumped at the chance to meet her downtown and go see Obama give his first speech as President-elect. The energy of this moment was unparalleled as a quarter of a million people filed into Grant Park to catch a glimpse of the man that meant so much to the world at that time. What a moment it was.
12
ƒ/16 | 1/50 | ISO 400
Armistice Day
It was a surreal experience to sit behind a row full of sailors and marines at an NFL game on Armistice Day. These two guys were enjoying the game, so I took the opportunity to snap a shot while the Bears and Lions were playing down below.