Elevated

Chicago is famous for many things - architecture, rivers, art and gangsters such as Al Capone.  And the Blues Brothers film, of course.  Once seen, the clip of Jake and Elwood trying to sleep in their 'compact and bijou' bedsit is hard to forget, with the constant noise of the trains as they rumble past at eye level.  The L, as its known (L for eLevated) is this city's answer to London's Tube.  There are parts downtown in 'the loop' which go underground but for the most part it's an overground system, which I much prefer.  I'm not a fan of going underground - it's years since I took the Tube in London and while I'd like to think it has improved a lot in that time all I remember is the dirt, the smell and the poor air quality.  That plus in an aging system like London's any major incident such as fire and you're lucky to get out in one piece - some of those London tube stations are seriously deep underground.

Anyway, we took the train from Oak Park in the West Suburbs downtown only once this trip.  It's just as quick to drive down the I-290 expressway if you don't hit traffic but parking downtown is pretty difficult and very expensive, so this time we went by CTA train (Chicago Transit Authority) and about 30 minutes later got off somewhere around State Street.  From there it was a couple of blocks to Michigan Avenue and a couple more to our destination - the Museum of Contemporary Photography, housed in Columbia College. Somewhere between State and Michigan Avenue I snapped up a bit of the L on the 'Blad with HP5+:

The L Metro system, downtown Chicago.  On Ilford Fibre Classic paper

So, why the Museum of Contemporary Photography, then?  Not for the contemporary photography, in this case - no, for the chance to see a few prints by Ansel Adams. Not often do I get that chance in or around the North East Liberties of Coleraine so it had to be done.  I wasn't disappointed.

In the small upstairs gallery there were a couple of dozen black and print prints - proper darkroom prints, of course.  And in and among them were about 8 by Mr Adams - all of them taken out in one or other of the National Parks.  What was great was simply having all the time I wanted to study the prints up close.  There were only a few other people in the place so it was perfect.  In no particular order, then:  the prints weren't that big, some were 8"x10", others maybe 10"x12"; the quality of the printing was as expected (good); some were signed, some were initialed, some had no signature; quite a few dust spots and blemishes were evident on close inspection (so it's not just me then);  some looked to be dry-mounted, others were mounted in see-through photo corners. It was great to be able to see them at such close quarters - I was very happy with my afternoon downtown.