I’ve spent years walking around Chicago with a camera.
And what’s funny is, I still find myself going back to a lot of the same places.
Same streets.
Same buildings.
Sometimes even the same corners.
You’d think after photographing a place enough times, eventually you’d run out of things to see.
And I’ll admit, there have been times when I’ve felt that way.
Like maybe I needed to go somewhere new to make something different.
But the more I photograph, the more I realize how much can change without a place actually changing.
The light.
The weather.
The people passing through.
Something I’ve walked past a hundred times might suddenly catch my attention because of one little thing I hadn’t noticed before.
I’ve always found that interesting about Saul Leiter’s photography.
Much of his work came from repeatedly photographing the streets around where he lived.
He didn’t need a completely different world every time he went outside.
He kept finding different ways to see the one he was already in.
And I think about that a lot when I’m out photographing.
Because sometimes I’ll walk down a street I’ve been down more times than I can count, and something will make me stop.
Maybe it’s a shadow.
A reflection.
Or somebody walking through the frame at just the right moment.
Something that wasn’t there yesterday.
Or maybe it was, and I just never noticed it.
I don’t think I’ll ever photograph everything there is to see in Chicago.
Not because the city is so big.
But because even the places I know best keep showing me things I haven’t seen before.
And sometimes I wonder how much of that is the place changing.
And how much of it is me.
