A couple weekends ago I led the second session of The White City workshop through Chicago Photography Classes (CPC). Like the previous workshop, we started with an online presentation where I shared a little info about working on projects and the inspiration behind them. This was emphasized by getting into the details of my The White City series which was inspired by Erik Larson’s book The Devil In The White City. If you haven’t read this yet, do it now! Even Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese are working on the film adaptation, so you know it’s gotta be good.
So, brief overview…the book is about the architect and plans behind the 1893 World’s Fair – lots of architecture details, city planning, city beautification plus the grim story of serial killer H.H. Holmes thrown in. All true, all interesting and written in novel-like fashion by Larson. Again, a must read.
A few years ago, in a very round-about way, this little photo series was born paying tribute to both Daniel Burnham, the fair’s mastermind, the grimmness of the city and Holmes’ actions and Larson’s poetic writing.
After an online presentation going into all these details and other project and inspiration ideas, we spent a full day photographing some iconic sites from the Fairgrounds area. We began with the only remaining building from that time – The Museum of Science & Industry. During the Fair it was the Fine Arts Building, which meant it needed to be more than temporary because it housed precious artwork. Around that area is Jackson Park and Washington Park which were designed by the “father of American landscape architecture” – Frederick Law Olmsted. If you’re not familiar with him, he’s best known for designing NYC’s Central Park.
So, here you go, a few images from the day…






If you want to see all of them, head over here. If you want to see the blog post from the first session, here you go and a link to all the images from that day + from the whole series.
The day following our shooting we met at CPC for a few hours to go over post-processing and printing. Everyone came away with edited images and prints of their own. Here you can see students working on their images and a couple of the final prints.

And a few images from the students, they each got some amazing shots!

If you’re not familiar with Chicago Photography Classes, be sure to check them out. They have a wide range of classes from beginner to advanced. And this fall I’ll be teaching my first 7-week course with them – Introduction to Architecture Composition. Would love to see you around CPC!