NEW Series: Glints from the Street
Chicago Cultural Center, 2017
In my last post, I talked about challenging times in life and how it can impact your photography. Today I am going way back, to 2017, for another challenging period of my life, and how photography was my lifeline for over a year.
The photographs in this new series are nothing like I have shared on Pursue Light before. This body of work spanned more than a year and is a result of thousands of photographs taken almost everyday on the same streets, and many times with the same people.
My goal with this new series is to bring you closer to the “everyday” streets of Chicago, oftentimes far from glorious, and allow you to see the many things that manifest when you work the same scenes and community for a long period of time. What may seem mundane suddenly becomes interesting under the lens of time, leading to striking revelations about people’s lives, challenges, and more which are typically invisible to us during the rush of daily life.
Chinatown, Chicago, 2017
Sitting on Photographs
I have been sitting on these images for about 5 years now. I am a believer of incubating your photographs. Over the years, I have realized some shots that I didn’t particularly appreciate at the time reveal their true value once you view them after a long while. But in the case of this work, it was 3000+ images taken over the course of a year, and I never quite figured out the best way to show these photos.
That was until I realized Purse Light was probably the best venue to share these images with the world. The images you will see in this series have a lot in them and it would be unfair (and impractical) to share all these 300+ shots in one go. That’s why I would like to share a limited number of them each time, talk about the life behind the camera at the time as well as what those photographs made me feel. Beyond everything else, I just hope these images inspire you.
It all starts…
The summer was once again quickly coming to an end in Chicago in 2017, as I was hoping to complete my assignment at a job I was not too crazy about. You know how this is: You have plans for life, and then life has plans for you. In my case, this meant another [reluctant] year at my assignment, and hence another year of feeling down.
South Side, Chicago, 2017
At the time, going out to the streets at any chance was an outlet for me and I was really enjoying street photography. Unfortunately, that ominous summer, I ended up having to move from Chicago to a suburb that is an hour away. That meant no more impromptu street photography sessions for me. In other words, that last outlet which kept me sane was also gone.
Sometimes, though, the best ideas come to you in moments of great despair. I was still working in the city, taking a shuttle in the morning and the evening. Then I realized I can try to do my street photography from the shuttle bus, however ridiculous that may sound. Ridiculous photography was better than no photography.
And this is how I started shooting the same streets of Chicago every single day, for a year. In the morning, and evening; in rain, sun, and snow. And I would realize this much later, but a lot of the same people, unknowingly.
Downtown, Chicago, 2017
Glints from the Street
During that year, I have seen so many beautiful things within the seemingly mundane. I have come to see the patterns of things and people (as you will be seeing too!). And unfortunately, I have also seen a lot of the misfortunes of people and their daily struggles. The images I have captured will take you from the heart of Chicago to Chinatown to the South Side, where you get to witness the mornings and evenings of the people who live there, just as you would see roaming these streets yourself.
I hope this new series, photos and stories will inspire you in life and your photography. There are more than 350 photographs that resulted from this work, so please sign up for the newsletter if you would like to be notified when the next chapter of this series is out.
As usual, please let me know any suggestions, or simply your thoughts by dropping a comment below, or sending me a couple lines. You can also follow Pursue light on Instagram, if you want to see what happens between the posts and inspiring photographs.
Until next time, keep pursuing your light!