Gray City

GRAY IS BEAUTIFUL! (At least I think so.) The idea for this series began on the afternoon of April 4, 2003 while my wife and I were driving north up Lake Shore Drive from Hyde Park. It was an extremely foggy day, yet there was an eerie glow in the air. The color of everything had faded away to various soft shades of gray, with no black or white. I remember thinking I had never seen the city so beautiful. I had a camera with me at the time, and some of the images in this series I captured that day. Since then, I’ve tried to get out and take photos on days with similar atmospheric conditions. Although days like that are relatively uncommon, I started to notice that many things in the city are naturally gray (or often appear so): the sky, the lake, the river, buildings, streets, highways, parking lots and garages, trees, dirty ice and snow. My hope is that these images will help dispel the often negative connotations associated with “grayness,” and show that Chicago is a beautiful place to be even when it isn’t warm and sunny and full of color. GRAY IS BEAUTIFUL!