Street Photography: Week 11

I knew heading into this week my mind was struggling to keep up with the workload. Monday I felt terrible and I knew depression and exhaustion had set in. After only a few hours I convinced myself to turn around and go home. I didn’t really pick up the camera this week except for a few joy walks around Uptown to admire the season. Tuesday I spent most of the day forcing myself to think about something other than photography, I just needed to find inspiration from something else. But when you’re so focused on achieving a goal it’s easy to feel guilty taking time off to rest. Even if you know it’s what you need most.

That said, this week I only took a fraction of the photos I would normally. The first one is of Lake Michigan I took last month while I walked around Evanston. It’s another photo that I initially passed over but have recently come to really enjoy. Something about how out of place the fence looks in the water and its relationship with the rocks gives it a surreal feeling, for me at least.

Chicago still feels empty and with the colder weather it’s starting to feel more dystopian to me more than anything. I’m hoping that with rain and snow the city will take on new life because I’m desperate for a new look. I can only take so much grey sky’s and empty streets before I lose interest. The other two photos are me searching for something else to photograph after having spent most of the day above ground without seeing anything. On their own they don’t tell a story or deserve much attention but if I think about them as pieces to a series they start to make sense. The emptiness is felt everywhere you go here and that’s a feeling I want to capture in a book once I have enough content.