It would have been such a lovely photograph had my camera not malfunctioned.
I was walking south toward the State Street Bridge after lunching with a friend at the Nordstrom Café. It was cold and windy and had just begun snowing, but I stubbornly ignored the conditions and took a few photographs with my trusty Canon, because I so seldom find myself walking this way. Plus, the weak grey light made the old grey skyscrapers look all the more showy.
In the viewfinder, the images looked normal, so it was distressing to get home and find that I had been abusing my camera and that each digital image was split between two different settings.
Nonetheless, I thought that, when processed as a black and white image, this one of the Jewelers Building at 35 East Wacker was still worth saving. If nothing else, it’s a memento of a moment and a day.
Crossing the bridge was a sad reminder of the two young people who died in the river’s icy waters just a few days ago. Yes, there is some hysteria about the weather, but there are also real hazards in cold-weather Chicago.
harley says
Yeah, I read that story about the two people who had drowned in the river. It was grim; walking on the ice to fetch a fallen cell phone–what a waste of two lives.
Foolishly, when I was young, I would venture out onto a frozen lake Michigan. Once my mom found out and banned me from going to the beach for the rest of that winter. I was in seventh or eighth grade.
Celia says
Their deaths were unnecessary. I’m glad to hear of mothers teaching their kids about the dangers of the Lake or any body of water, for that matter.