This is the first of several posts covering a recent trip to America with writer Beatrice Colin, a trip that still has my mind in a whirl with the exhilarating strangeness of the places we visited and the awesome beauty of the landscapes. The original plan was to post these daily bulletins, together with images, as we went. However the little Mac we took with us just refused to cooperate with the Lightroom software I use for processing images. So now I’m playing catch-up. Each post will include a couple of images but many more can be found at my Flickr page (just hit the Flickr button on this site), where you can also find bigger versions of all the images.
The rationale for the trip was research Beatrice was doing for her next book, set during the time of the depression, and the opportunity for me to photograph the places we visited. The plan was to arrive in Chicago,spend a few days there then fly down to Albuquerque, pick up a car there are then drive through Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado and then back into New Mexico- taking in a little of Route 66 along the way. And we managed it – more than managed it, loved it. I hope you get some sense of the places we visited from the images.
Day One, when we arrived in Chicago it was already dark. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a flatter city. Twinkling lights spread out in every direction up to the horizon. Two days in the city allowed us to hit all the main sights – on the first day we rode the Loop, saw the Anish Kapoor sculpture at Milennium Park, caught some jazz at the city’s cultural centre and chatted to some Third Agers there. Beatrice had her own, writing-oriented goals. My own aim was to try to make some interesting pictures, including some lit photographs outdoors. Here’s an attempt.
We had great fun with a little Flip camera as well and Beatrice even persuaded me to take a role in a short film she wanted to make for her forthcoming book. Do I need to say I’m no actor? Anyway, it was fun, and we found a great old bar with lots of period detail to shoot it in.
Anish Kapoor’s Silver Bean is a magnificent object to behold – see photograph on Flickr page-and after a diet of progressive jazz and sculpture we really should have known enough was enough. But we tempted fate and risked a third art form by visiting the Gallery of Contemporary photography. I’ve got to be honest here and hold my hand up to say that if I had to choose between most “art ” photography and the work of people like Avadon or Irving Penn or any number of other photographers who worked for commercial magazines, I’ll take the latter almost every time. In any case the gallery trip was short and we soon found the comfort we needed in some cold beer and sushi. Here’s another night-time image.
More tomorrow on the American flag, multi-culturalism and coffee.