Thursday, September 02, 2004

Green City


I used to think that Chicago was a big city like you imagine when you picture Gotham City. I was afraid it was going to be all concrete and asphalt and steel and glass.

Long before I came here, David would reassure me that there were neighborhoods, and trees, and parks. But I knew what that looked like -- that was where I grew up. I couldn't imagine that a city as huge as Chicago would have green space and lush trees.

Wow was I wrong.

I took the picture above during the spring of 2000. David let me start playing with an old East German camera. Nothing automatic, nothing pretty, pure function.

I bought a couple of books at a used book store on photography and tried to self-teach f-stops and proper camera holds and the such.

This was one of my first shots ever. I was trying to figure out how you do that thing to make the foreground out of focus and the background in focus and vice versa. I'm not sure which I was going for here -- and I'm not sure if it worked, but I've always liked this shot.

I centered things nicely (at least in comparison to other shots on the roll), and I love that there are two people at the far end, and dark branches that frame the top. And I like it because it is so green -- the picture is full of green! And it's on a side neighborhood street in the big city of Chicago.

2 comments:

Sister Sunshine said...

I like it too!
: )

Anonymous said...

That is a very good pic.