harry benson recap

i thought i would provide a quick recap from my evening with harry benson and a quick photo of the night. harry benson was very charming and such a pleasure to listen to. he's seen some really amazing things in his lifetime. he took us through a selection of his photographs and told the stories behind them. all, in all, it was a really fun evening.


(isn't my new iphone app cool... it makes pictures into polaroids... i love it!)

a few highlights:

** harry arrived in the US with the beatles and never left. his photographs capture so many moments of beatles history... when lennon said they were more powerful than god, when they met mohammed ali, paul composing at the piano with stella, their arrival in the US.

** i asked him if there was anyone left that he was interested in photographing... he said putin. and maybe the pope... reading the sports page in bed... to humanize him a bit. :)

** he has a great picture of greta garbo, swimming along in antigua when she just happened to float by the boat that he was on with friends.

** elizabeth taylor allowed harry to take photographs of her both pre and post her brain surgery. she really marches to her own drummer doesn't she?

** harry believes that in the world of photographers versus reporters, photographers are able to understand subtle nuances of things that are happening. photographers are also able to get much closer to subjects through their art. reporters are simply 'too busy taking notes to see what's really happening'. he said that while working at the nixon white house, the photographers could see that something was happening within the staff... but the reporters were missing it for the most part.

** he was there when bobby kennedy was shot, at martin luther king's funeral, in somalia at the refugee camps, at the watts riots, in afghanistan with the army, with the ira in ireland, when the berlin wall went up and when it went down, when nixon resigned, with michael jackson on neverland ranch...

what an amazing life.

An Evening with Harry Benson

I'm so excited! Friday night, the Chicago Photography Center (where I took my photography class) is hosting an evening with Harry Benson.



Harry Benson is in his late 70's now and has photographed many famous celebrities and world leaders throughout his life. From The Beatles, Michael Jackson and Janis Joplin to Martin Luther King Jr. to Elizabeth Taylor to Benazir Bhutto to the Clinton's. From Bobby Kennedy's assassination to Hurricane Katrina's aftermath and the falling of the Berlin Wall, his camera has seen it all. He's even photographed every U.S. President from Eisenhower to Barack Obama.

I'm really excited for the event and will certainly provide a quick recap if there is anything fun to share after the event!

If you're interested, NPR did an interview with him and you can listen to it here.

A Quick (very quick) study in photo editing

The other day I took a few shots of some of my favorite buildings in Chicago. One of my all-time favorites are commonly referred to as the "corncob buildings". They have a formal name... although I'm not sure many people in Chicago actually know what it is.

Today, while I was going through and editing the photos, I thought that I might showcase how different treatments can really change the look and feel of the photo from tropical to retro to moody. See for yourself in the following photo transformation...

The original:


With a bit of photo editing... (pumped up colors on the left, pulled out colors on the right)
you can feel the mood shifting from happy to something completely different.



Don't these two below look more vintage and a bit faded? These two are my personal favorites.



I love how the blue in these almost changes the temperature of the photo to feel hot and almost sundrenched... like you're in Hawaii or the tropics.

A Photo tour of the West Loop

We've lived in the West Loop area for several years now. We've lived in lots of different neighborhoods in the city, but have really grown to love this one. Its a bit of a hidden gem, really. It used to be the meatpacking and market district of the city. Many of those businesses still remain, and some are even open to the public now. There are tons of old warehouses in the area that have now been converted into condos and lofts and each day new shops and restaurants are appearing.



We're surrounded by Restaurant Row which has some of the hottest restaurants in town as well as lots of clubs.


Its definitely an area in transition and with lots of juxtaposition going on. One minute there's a valet line, the next there's a delivery truck full of vegetables.

Sights & Sounds of Greektown

We live only a few blocks away from Greektown and its one of my favorite places to go for dinner. Being a pescetarian, I love Mediterranean food. I spent a day recently walking the streets of Greektown and trying to capture the area in some photos. Its so colorful and lively!



one of my favorite bakeries and lunchtime haunts.


reflections in the music store window


i love this old hotel signage.


greek keys are everywhere, including the gates around Walgreens'