Alleys & Ruins no. 142, Luv (2013, Chicago, IL, 10:00pm)

Alleys & Ruins no. 142, Luv (2013, Chicago, IL, 10:00pm)
 
The five rapid gunshots are loud and close. All of us instinctively hit the ground.
We look at each other.
“Holy crap.”
A long moment of silence follows. Then, we all get back up.
I return to my camera and lighting equipment and resume planning my photograph.
A few minutes later, flashing lights approach. A cop car. The officers step out cautiously. One rests his hand on the top of his holstered sidearm. The other barks, “What’s going on here?”
I start explaining that we’re setting up for a photo.
The cops look at us, then at each other, like none of this makes sense. And why would it? Who sets up in a dark, abandoned back lot, in Chicago’s notoriously dangerous Lawndale neighborhood, with bags and bags of expensive equipment, in the middle of the night... to take a photo?
They glance through our gear, flip open a few bags, and realize we’re telling the truth.
“Look,” one of them says, “you guys take your photo. But be careful out here. We had a report of shots fired. Do you know anything about that?”
We tell them about the five shots that rang out ten minutes earlier and point in the general direction. They nod, then get back in the car and speed away, looking for the shooter.
And I get back to work.
It’s dark, but I can still make out the crumbling, ugly eyesore that remains of the building. And if all goes well, I’m going to make it pretty, by lighting it up with bright, colored lights.
I’ve been photographing dangerous alleys and ruins for almost 30 years. It’s an obsession rooted in a difficult chapter of my life. Encounters with angry cops aren’t fun, but I’m used to them. I worry more about running into street gangs. And I have, several times over the years. Those were not good nights. And those are entirely other stories...  so let me just stick to this one for now.
I focus on my camera again. I make adjustments to the settings, this old 50-year-old Hasselblad has been with me a long time. Then I choose the lights I’ll be using from my big selection of spotlights and flash units. Next is the color scheme. I pull out the gels and filters I need and start attaching them to the lights.
There’s a shriek behind me. One of my assistants has just seen a big rat.
I return to the camera. I’m about to begin the first of several 30-minute exposures (we’re going to be here a while). During each long exposure, I’ll be walking through the scene with a light in my hand, slowly building up layers of light and color. I light these scenes in a theatrical style. I want the final image to feel like a stage set. I love imagining all the characters who’ve come and gone over the years in this overlooked, forgotten corner of the world.
When I look at this place, I know there are stories here, but there’s no one to ask, so all you can do is imagine.
I click the shutter. The first exposure begins.
I'm going to be stepping in front of the camera to do my lighting. It's the only way to create the detailed, precise lighting I need. But of course I don't want myself to appear in the photo. Over the years I've built up a big bag of tricks. It's almost pitch black and I'm wearing a black hoodie so it's hard for the camera to see me, as long as I keep moving while in front of the camera. 
I flip the hoodie over my head and step into the scene to begin lighting the picture that would become Alleys & Ruins no. 142, Luv
 
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A PBS-TV crew had come along with me that night, interested in seeing how I prowl around dark dirty corners in search of ugly beauty. They were producing a segment for the program, In the Loop, a weekly public affairs show. The segment producer, Mario Tharpe, had come along with his camera crew. You can see the clip here.

As in all my work in the Alleys & Ruins series, I try to hide the harsh grittiness under a layer of fantasy with the use of my lighting, and since this was a 30-minute exposure, I had lots of time to work.

I rarely get to do a "before" shot, since I always show up at night. But since the TV crew wanted to get some clear footage of me and my old gear at work, we showed up just before sunset.