beautiful things...

beautiful things
Originally uploaded by katherine of chicago

...are on their way here. The pressure (from myself, not others) to restart this blog is on, and I've got good ideas. I'm still dealing with a sprained ankle and planning a complicated multi-city trip that's just a few days away...and starting to panic as I think about all the stuff to do. Thanks to everyone who's said nice things--mostly on Flickr, didn't get much of a reaction anywhere else I've blabbed the "Best of" across the Internet...nor have any of my pre-blog/Flickr friends, except for one I told, said anything to me. I didn't want to call everyone up and say, "Hey, did you see the Reader?" but perhaps I'll have to, before I've grabbed up all the extra copies. And one of the "Best of" posters from the outside of a Reader box, I'll confess (hey, the box was already out of papers). This is my "most favorited" photo on Flickr now, by the way, a sign from a mostly abandoned stretch of downtown Gary, IN. But I'm going to try to reserve blogged-from-Flickr after this for blogging from the road (which I certainly hope I can do on the aforementioned trip).

Enough about me. In the past few days I've also added many new people to the blogroll/links, mostly in the "Architecture, etc." "Chicago bloggers" and "Built environment" sections--YOU might be listed now!

it's an honor just to be nom...WHAT?

I’m the “Best Local Blog” (tie) according to the Chicago Reader!
Originally uploaded by katherine of chicago

I posted a brief entry today and when checking the comments of the previous one, noticed this little blog was picked (in a tie with Hack--congrats, Dmitry!), as "Best Local Blog" by the Chicago Reader! By the editors--I'm way too obscure to win the readers' poll. Well, now the pressure's on to turn this back into a real blog, when nearly all my online energy has gone to my main (Katherine of Chicago) Flickr page. I'll have another new post ASAP, about my accident. What have I MEANT to write photo-essays about?

My stupid accident. Photographing every CTA station early in 2008. (These are my photos tagged CTA.) How I walked all 8 miles of Madison Street on the anniversary of the 1968 riots there. My visits to Detroit, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Hammond. How I saw Wrigley Field for the first time after many years here, and the White Sox for the first time since moving here. And that high school whose demolition I photographed every week for 4 months, and whose former students contacted me. And a beautiful former theater I happened to get in one day. And...oh, so much pressure, I will try to post at least a couple of these stories before my mega-trip to the East Coast in July.

Thanks so much to Whet Moser at the Reader for the honor, and to any new readers, please check out the "favorite/best" posts to get an idea of what this blog is supposed to be.

Remnant of the not-too-distant past

Marshall Field's only!
Originally uploaded by katherine of chicago

While this blog is still on semi-hiatus, I should at least blog-from-Flickr some unusual finds, especially ones that I was, uh, amazed got no response there (and I put this in a ton of groups, too!).

I was doing some northwest side photography; I'd been taking the Pulaski bus a lot and for a while this spring it was detoured on Belmont all the way to Cicero. This is actually Diversey just west of Pulaski, though, across from the huge furniture store/warehouse I've never been inside but always wondered about. Along with everything else Marshall Field's, the name on it was changed to Macy's in 2006.

So I was amazed to see an active sign still reading Field's (that's different from the State St. store still having Field's plates on it--this is an actual sign telling you what business it is!). It's not a beautiful photo, but I still felt sad it faded into obscurity...like Field's itself?

I'm somewhere

Simmons & Clark, downtown Detroit
Originally uploaded by katherine of chicago

Sorry I haven't maintained even the bare-minimum of blogged-from-Flickr recently. I believe my last post referred to an unspecified exciting trip I was going on (Detroit), that was exciting, and did change things for me, though maybe not all in a good way. Anyhow, since then I've taken a too-short trip to Milwaukee and too-short trip to St. Louis (which I'm on the last day of now, I had a big bicycling/photo day planned but it's raining). I have many photos to put on Flickr before the next trip.

I've noticed that a few people do click from here to Flickr, whether it's the links list, or clicking on the actual photos I blog, I don't know. But this photo is well worth clicking on to see how a person (an excellent sign photographer on Flickr) actually saw me as I took this photo, then ran into it later on Flickr, and now we're contacts!