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Photo Essays

Chicago: A Personal Photo Essay

Chris Gampat
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05/14/2016
4 Mins read
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Last Updated on 05/14/2016 by Chris Gampat

Photo Essays is a series on the Phoblographer where photographers get to candidly speak their mind about a specific subject or project of theirs. Want to submit? Send them to editors@thephoblographer.com.

All images and text by Ashlin Wang. Be sure to also follow him on Instagram.

Nikon F100, Sigma 28mm 1.8, Tamron 45mm 1.8,
Kentmere 100 and 400 B&W films, Kodak gold 200
Home processing for B&W and local lab for Kodak gold
Scanned on Pakon f-135+

A week before the trip I didn’t know I would be going. I had thought I asked for a day off and ended up with a week. So how do you fill that time when there are not any priorities? Make a trip to Chicago. I drove from KC to St. Louis for a concert,then stayed the night at a rest stop, (wrote about that here.) and finally ended up in Chicago with little clue of what I would be doing.

I had this vague perspective of this city from the time I visited with my family years ago, I had mostly forgotten what that had been like, what I had seen, and only remembered Chicago Pizza, the words, not what they implied. I had even forgot the existence of that popular bean. The only thing I really knew was two of my friends lived there and that that would be a starting point.

With little expectations and plans, I drove right into the heart of the city because my phone died and therefore had no GPS, I just basically followed the buildings until I was in the middle. I was in the most Chicago part of Chicago I could be, but I then had to figure out what I was doing. So I parked in a parking garage and charged my phone, when I left the garage fifty minutes later my wallet was $20 dollars lighter. But at least I had a destination, my friends house.

These photos are from my time exploring the city and meeting people. It is also my first time trying to incorporate recordings to the photography. The goal is to have a more understandable perspective on the visual content by marrying audio to it. However I did a terrible job making field recordings, it is a start and I am already learning what to do next time.

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When I am walking around, I am always looking for light, layering, and individuals or groups interactions to the space they inhabit.

I’ve heard this phrase before, “I take photos because I’m curious what it will look like as a photograph,” that phrase definitely holds true to me. It is the ability to remove what you don’t find important and make sense of the spaces and subjects you see, and film allows you to forget what you took away because of the forced delay of time between photographing and seeing the results.

The world is chaotic and to pull things out and say or show something is a really fun thing to do. It can have power, even if the power is simple. Like hey, I find this aspect of humanity beautiful, or the opposite, this aspect of humanity is f***ed up. I love that everyone’s perspective does not have to be right, it just is.

I wanted to let the city speak to me, I didn’t want the places I had been to be a hinderance to what I would see and feel, I had even forgotten what people have told me of the city. These sounds will help.

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The density of the city was beautiful to me. I loved the many layers that were stacked throughout, from the individuals to the skyscrapers and everything that filled that space; signs, cars, the train system, birds. It was prime opportunity to put the jigsaw puzzle together and make the pieces fit.

I love viewing people as stories and experiences, their clothes and expressions giving hints to what their stories could be. The best part is when you can spark up a conversation and see if those hints were helpful or just misleading, or leave the conversation aside and let my imagination run.

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The contrast between Lake Michigan and the city was also intriguing. You would walk through the thick forest of buildings and finally break through the brush, the vastness of water was there to meet you.

I recently have been more conscious of the fact that sounds and smells often lead sight and I want to incorporate that to my photography. This set was the first time I have tried combining sounds to the sights and I am already working on being able to do that more effectively. Vinny Tullo’s photo set called The Finals was also an inspiration as I noticed the interaction between dogs and people more than I think I would have.

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Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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