A Victory Against Time

Wow. That was a lot of HDR and a lot of Paris over the past few entries. Let’s put that behind us in the New Year and make this a new beginning. And by new beginning I mean, let’s take a look at one of my oldest photos, the old North Ave. Milwaukee Road railroad bridge at the north end of Goose Island.


Okay, so maybe this isn’t that old – I had certainly been shooting film for a while and had even shot several thousand frames digitally before I took this image. But, this shot is from the Winter of ’06 when – inspired by the works of these guys – I decided to finally get serious about photography in general and urban landscape in particular. Driven by memories of passing repeatedly through the area in the late seventies and early eighties and the knowledge of the rapid gentrification of the neighborhood, this part of Lincoln Park was the obvious place to start.

Really, there’s not a lot to say about this photo – it captures exactly the feeling I was going for. My only regrets are technical – I shot this as a jpeg rather than RAW and for some reason, I shot this at 24mm when I know that I owned a 16mm lens. Oh well, minor issues.

Incidentally, while I always meant to go back and get some more images of the bridge – perhaps comforted by the fact that I got THIS image – I never did. Wouldn’t you know it but the city renovated this thing a few years ago. I can’t say I’m crazy about the renovation (new paint and deck) but it’s way better than having it torn down. And, to be fair, the new bridge is an interesting subject in its own right. But that one isn’t MY bridge and this one is. All too often I remark – and I’m not the first to do so – that digital photography came too late…but not this time.