Why do we photograph our cities?

Walking down the corridor in Chicago's Grand Avenue station, the train starts flying by. One of the windows on the train is totally smashed. The pattern created is incredibly exquisite with beautiful lines emanating out from one spot. I didn’t have time to take a photo, I continued to think about that wonderful window. I wanted to share it with others.

Walking down that corridor I realized that one of the reasons why I do photography is expressing love for places. Others who take photos of their city/places often capture these images because of expressing love for their places.

Just before this realization, I was reading commentaries and sermons on the "love chapter" of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13. That morning it brought onto me the challenge to love people more. And I was feeling kinda crappy for not being better at this. I tend to be an introvert and not reach out to people as much as I should.

But then I realized that in my introverted ways I am sharing some love. When people see my photos and recognize a place, they feel something in common--that place. And it's just not any place, but a special place, because someone took the time to photograph it and share it. There's a feeling of belonging to a place when you see others photographing it and taking care of the place.

I especially like taking a scene and transforming it into something beautiful and wonderful. As with my Obama inauguration photo. People who were there are amazed that they stood at that very scene. And for those who weren't there, they are awed by how a place can be so imbued with beauty.


If we can love each other and places like this, it makes us more connected. The more connected we are, the more we love each other. Horizontally--on a person-to-person basis, we care called to connect to each other. Connect through love. Anything without love is nothing.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

--1 Corinthians 13
(One of the sermons about 1 Corinthians 13 that I was specifically reading that day on the train that gripped me was Absolute Zero by Byron Harvey. )

I thank God that He has helped me realize why I take photographs of our city. I hope that anyone reading this will realize that maybe you take photos of your city, because you love your city and want to connect that love with others.