©2010 Chicago Tribune/Alex Garcia
“So are you feeling spiritual this morning?” was the question I was lightheartedly asked after transmitting these pictures yesterday. At first I didn’t realize what the editors were talking about. In search of morning fog pictures, I had stopped at the intersections of Balbo and Columbus after being dazzled by light rays from a building through the fog. Have you seen this type of phenomenon before? I hadn’t. By the time I got there on foot, the wind had carried away the fog and my photo with it. So I turned around, saw the statue at left, and thought – well, at least it’s something. Then I saw some of the dazzling reflections again on the building at right. I ran towards it and photographed the light rays before transmitting from my camera using our mobile technology. I was so focused on the unusual light, I didn’t even realize the overall image. When I later saw the cross I found it amusing and a little embarrassing that although I’m a photographer and churchgoer, others saw it before I did.
©2010 Chicago Tribune/Alex Garcia
The wheel turns at Navy Pier a recent morning, and a new month of assignments brings new highs and lows in the life of our city. I was asked a fairly frequent question on Friday, “So what is your typical day like?” As viewers of this blog know, every day is atypical. I’m on a day shift which means that I get whatever happens during that period of time. I usually find out that morning, with many changes during the day. Think of photo assignments as airplanes needing air traffic control. If you look at assignments on radar, the flight path of one photojournalist from another could be completely different owing to the time of day and other circumstances. If I’m a night guy working weekends, it means I’m shooting a lot of sports. When I worked in Southern California, I would be out at photographing Rams or Raiders game every weekend. I even shot NFC Championships and a Superbowl. But as a Chicago photographer, I haven’t shot a single Bears or Bulls game in 10 years (OK with me, BTW). So in addition to time of day, the size of paper makes a difference. If I worked at a smaller paper, I might be shooting a feature picture story of an interesting character in the community on a regular basis. At a larger paper, that character might become a portrait to occupy the lead in a sweeping piece about interesting characters in a region. Each approach has its strengths, but it will color a photojournalist’s portfolio. As a result, the work of a photojournalist and his newspaper is symbiotic. Below is a short sampling of my photo assignments from the past month. Since moving to an earlier morning shift, I found there tends to be more overnight crime than at other points in my career.
(I don’t describe those that haven’t been published yet or which are multiple day assignments. Many assignments, in which I check on a police report, don’t get listed either).
A popular restaurant that burned down overnight.
People whose health insurance was mistakenly dropped.
Cubs pack up for spring training.
A candidate for Cook County Board President casts her vote.
A memorial after a fatal car crash.
A wind farm.
Lawyers at a press conference about medical malpractice.
Interviews of Republican candidates for governor.
CTA bus stops in the wake of budget cuts.
Lawyers at a press conference about a medical malpractice court ruling.
Heavy snowfall.
A gubernatorial candidate thanks voters at a train station.
A street corner of a proposed high tower in suburbs.
A body found in an alley.
The Auto Show.
A mob of media surrounding a convicted town mayor released from prison.
A CHA building being demolished.
Freight trains stalled in suburbs, blocking intersections.
An executive director of a battered women’s shelter.
An early morning shooting at Northern Illinois University.
A police officer killed in an accident.
A single father brings his kids to a preschool.
High schoolers playing rugby.
A warehouse of printing presses.
A food pantry for the needy.
Family of teenager shot and killed.
A state official at a church event.
Commuters struggling with weather.
Freeway accident involving a state vehicle.
Behind the scenes at a Chicago Police Department facility.
©2010 Chicago Tribune/Alex Garcia
A commuter walks among the 9-foot tall cast iron legs of “Agora” a public art installation at Michigan Avenue and Roosevelt Roads. I’ve seen this several times, but didn’t see a time in which a photo could work really well. I passed by it this morning and for the first time saw that commuters had forged a path between the legs. Shooting at eye level would have been a bit pedestrian, so I laid down in snow when I saw a commuter coming around the bend. People are such good sports. I got up covered in snow and asked for her name for the paper. I’m sure I was quite the sight, but it never ceases to amaze me how little I have to explain before complete strangers tell me what their name is and what they’re up to. In this case, maybe there was some sympathy for the photographer at work…
©2010 Chicago Tribune/Alex Garcia
I’m catching the train back to work this next week. Well, only figuratively. I’ve been off for a week on a staycation, and the morning sun beckons. This year I’m going to make more of an effort to find activities in the morning, in addition to the next-beautiful-morning-light-scenic and the day-after fire. If you have any suggestions, I’m all ears…
©2009 Chicago Tribune/Alex Garcia
From the courthouse in downtown Chicago you get a decent view into many office buildings next door. Since covering courtroom-related news is usually a game of hurry up and wait, there is plenty of time for me to gaze out towards the galaxy of cubicles and wonder about a career path in photojournalism that enables jeans, long hair and beard scruff. I guess that sounds freeing in a Harley-Davidson kind of way, but there has always been a conventional side of me that wonders about what it would be like to wear a tie everyday to work. A good friend of mine who went from plumber to civil engineer loves doing so, feeling himself the educated man he worked to become. I’ve tried ties, but with camera straps from two heavy bodies, credentials, and what some p.r. person may want to hang around my neck to confer legitimacy, I may as well start pulling a plow I’m so strapped in. It also seems that the day I wear a tie with nice slacks and dapper shoes is the day I get assigned to shoot a pig farm. Of course, nowadays, the world is more casual. On most days I’m probably better dressed than some billionaire software engineers I’ve met in Mountain View, CA…
©2009 Chicago Tribune/Alex Garcia
An end-of-year message came to mind as I watched a man feed seagulls on the lake this week. Fellow Chicago photojournalist John White from the Sun-Times is known to say, “Keep in Flight!” The light will always shine again, as it did that day, after ten days of cold and 18 minutes of sunshine. Without realizing the relevance of her words, my daughter has also been singing a hopeful message that is apropos for this challenging year. After watching the musical “Annie”, she hasn’t stopped singing “..the sun will come out to-mo-rrow…” Have a Great New Year and Keep in Flight!
©2009 Chicago Tribune/Alex Garcia
Merry Christmas! Have a safe and blessed holiday season and New Year! Thank you sincerely for all your messages of support and friendship this year!
©2009 Chicago Tribune/Alex Garcia
The hour when I drive in to the city is showtime for the sky. If you see more than a few morning pictorials on this photo blog, it’s because I’m just capturing a sliver of the elusive beauty that slips across the sky. Even with my photographic “dusty mirror”, the colors and the light that presents itself gets me going even more than the morning joe.
©2009 Alex Garcia
I am off the first three days this week, so my vacation days have coincided with the first serious snowfall of the season. That means I can more easily take an enchanted view of the snow. I don’t have to worry about getting that perfect shot of the miserable commuting experience shared by hundreds of thousands. I can focus on the bucolic scene and horses from the first snowfall of last winter, coming back from western Illinois where our parents live. The memory of this scene has truly helped me past the snowdrifts of negativity while driving in traffic around the city. I have heard it said that people seem to be wired for biophilia, or “love of nature”, and that people’s most peaceful memories are usually outside in nature. I would agree… It’s hard for me to stay upset at snow when I’m embracing a snow scene in my mind’s eye…
©2009 Alex Garcia
I was in a parking lot on the near west side when I looked up and saw the full moon rising over the Chicago skyline. I checked my watch. It was only about 4:30pm…
©2009 Chicago Tribune/Alex Garcia
No, no, not yet…hang in there little buddy. Just a few more nice days and weekends. We’re in no hurry for winter. Don’t fall yet!
©2009 Chicago Tribune/Alex Garcia
A train line weaves its way through the landscape south of Chicago. Go, economy, go…
©2009 Alex Garcia
Cloud Gate, or, “The Bean”, as seen from a helicopter. I was in between assignments and couldn’t resist a pass over Millennium Park to see what you could see looking down on it. Hmmm…looks like it could use a little TLC up on top. Not many people realize there is actually an office area inside The Bean. During construction of the sculpture I was ushered into it to photograph some of its inner mechanics. The reflectivity of its shiny surface somewhat disguises its true interior volume…
©2009 Chicago Tribune/Alex Garcia
“The only thing we have to fear is….” is monster light. Well, not really…but in an experiment that shows that fear is in the eye of the beholder, I was sent to the Garfield Park Conservatory on a previous Halloween to shoot pictures of plants, but in a scary way. It sounded ridiculous, but it worked fearfully well. Keep your light down below and you can make most things scary. I know a photographer who went to a meeting of Republicans and did just that. No joke. In this case, it worked by putting the light above, creating a virtual nose and deep eye sockets. This picture, with its ominous Hellraiser overtones, lingers in my memory as an example of how easy it can be to manipulate the fear impulse that is normally reserved for personal survival. Of course, having been scarred by the film “Trilogy of Terror” when I was a child, I know that impulse can be hair-trigger depending on one’s personal movie-watching history…But hey, it’s just a plant.
Was back on campus at Northwestern University for my 20th year reunion and felt the urge to take pictures on campus..not just because of the fall foliage, but because as the former photo editor for the campus yearbook, there was a sense of wanting to close a circle of photography. My interest in photojournalism had started here on campus, lugging around a camera in between classes. The career interest brought me to both coasts, numerous papers and countries for assignment, then back to the Trib whose front page down the street had one of my photos that day. What a long, strange, but blessed, trip it’s been…
©2009 Alex Garcia
Sharing a moment of peace…went to the Garfield Park Conservatory with the kiddo and saw the Koi fish pond. As a photographer, I’m just mesmerized by them…
©2009 Chicago Tribune/Alex Garcia
It has been a revelation for me to work the early morning shift – morning by morning new glories above the Chicago skyline. It’s amazing. Every sunrise is like a new painting (ok, when it’s not overcast)… Not that I would get up earlier on a regular basis, because I’m such a night person, but why haven’t I ever heard people talk about the gorgeous sunrises over the city? It’s quite different than watching the sunset over the Eisenhower in the evening and the red color caused by brake lights from a traffic jam. Here the skyline and sky create this momentous promise. You half expect to pass the Chicago Symphony Orchestra playing on an overpass or sidestreet. I can’t believe I’ve been snoozing through this for so many years…
©2009 Alex Garcia
I’m frequently in the Loop in a parking garage that faces the Metropolitan Correctional Center. With its triangular shape and narrow windows, it often causes me to pause for a longer look at its unique architecture and what I imagine to be the varied life stories found within each sliver of light. I’ve photographed enough stories of the wrongfully accused and the rightfully jailed, the innocent bystanders and the guilty perpetrators, the deceived and the deceivers, to know that every story within that narrow box is either messy, sad, evil, or some combination of the three. I usually pause, then drive away, grateful that I can.
©2009 Chicago Tribune/Alex Garcia
Like many people, I enjoy looking at the interplay of the skyline and the day’s weather. Yesterday I was coming in with the sky largely clear. Off in the distance, I could see something that looked like white smoke from an extinguished fire. Turned out to be morning fog coming in off the lake to engulf the Hancock. I pulled off to the side of the Kennedy for a moment to shoot the scene before it was gone.
©2009 Chicago Tribune
I wonder how many people remember Navy Pier when it was a straightforward pier populated by fishermen and flopping fish. Now, things are…carnivalesque. With the AeroBalloon, a helium balloon with a 350-foot view, Navy Pier has an exclamation point in the sky (albeit temporary). I was there when they were putting final touches on the ride and getting their inspections done. As I chatted with workers in the shade of the balloon, I saw the opportunity of a photo. My camera was in aperture-priority, so I knew it would expose for the huge white circle in the frame, creating silhouettes of the workers. In this way, working with my camera is like travelling with a friend. You know how he will react in any given situation. Had I fussed with my controls, the photo would have been lost. So I pointed my camera upwards as they all began to walk away. Predictably, the meter darkened the figures and the symmetry of their backs helped float the picture…:-)
