This time last year, I was engulfed by the Polar Vortex in Chicago, but this year I am in the Boston area for its record snowfall. The region has received nearly 8 feet (2.4 meters) of snow in the last few weeks, and additional precipitation is forecast. Unfortunately, the area’s public transportation infrastructure is woefully underprepared for the deluge, and many municipalities don’t know where to put all of the snow; Boston has even considered dumping it in the harbor. Even so, the accumulation makes for a fresh landscape and is especially peaceful on Cambridge’s side streets at night.
Over the last several days, the Chicago region experienced as much as 18 inches of snow and temperatures as low as -15 Fahrenheit (roughly -26 Celsius). I love how snow transforms the city and how low temperatures affect the visibility of water vapor, so I headed out to get a sense of the South Side and Northwestern Indiana.
The following is a selection of my favorite photographs from my outings. As always, you can click through to see larger versions of the photographs on flickr.
As regular followers of my flickr stream know, since January I have been producing environmental video for the Kartemquin Films documentary Almost There. The film follows an 82-year-old artist who lives in the Northwestern Indiana region, and my goal was to provide a sense of the landscape in relation to his important life events.
While I don’t live far from the Indiana border, the Northwestern Indiana communities are outside my daily routine, so I was excited to have the opportunity to focus on the region. While my main work was video, I photographed many of the scenes and spent some time photographing my own subjects. I’ve selected a few of my favorite images from that work in Hammond, Whiting and East Chicago and included them below. Click on any of the images to view them bigger on flickr.
Look for Almost There on PBS next year. In the meantime, you can receive updates on Facebook and Twitter.
I just returned from a visit to Topeka, Kansas and Kansas City (Kansas and Missouri), where I conducted some interviews, visited with good people and, of course, photographed. While I came down with a cold in Kansas City, I was still able to do a little shooting in both locales. Some of my favorite images from the trip are below.
Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri
Topeka, Kansas
Sociology & Photography by David Schalliol