Summer reflections

11 October 2014

While I had known fully for some time now that autumn is upon us in Chicago, it did not hit me fully until yesterday afternoon. As I walked around Grant Park downtown with a camera in hand and fought with my scarf as it fluttered in the wind, I looked up and noticed that the amount of orange foliage on the trees were much more prominent than last week. All of the signs had been in front me well before—the prevalence of pumpkin spice latte, the nippy weather, the absence of the godawful abomination of high-waisted jean shorts—but it was not until yesterday that it had dawned on me that summer is over.

I have been feeling rather reflective and nostalgic lately—mostly due to the fact that I had turned 31 just last week—but the realisation of the change of season yesterday had me thinking back to the short summer that had just passed. Perhaps not short to others, but it was quite brief for me given that I spent most of it agonizing over a brutal appellate advocacy course. To add insult to injury, the month of August left me trying to recover from a creativity slump as I tried to bounce back from a severe bout of fatigue and exhaustion. And so, instead of attending a burlesque show up north as I had originally planned, I ended up just staying in and went through the unpublished photographs I had made in the latter half of summer. Although I had initially perceived the month of August as being the least inspiring for me photographically, my reflections last night revealed that in my struggle to recover, my eyes may not had been as banal and dull as I had thought, just tired.

Of course, living in Chicago does help as there is always some interesting moment to capture.

Such as people taking pictures of people.