Photos from a dreary January afternoon

January 24 was the sixth straight day in a row of low hanging clouds here in Chicago. The snow that's been on the ground for weeks has mostly melted in the slightly warmer weather and the two months of trash it was hiding has resurfaced. In short, its the last sort of day when normal people would think to pull out their camera and go for a walk. But I realized that I've taken some of my favorite photos on days that didn't seem very scenic or beautiful. So I set off along the sidewalk to the Loyola Park beach. Roughly the first half of the photos are from my walk 6 blocks to the lake and the second half are the from the sandy, dirty ice bergs I found there.

One of the things I'm noticing about these photos is that I enjoy the parts that are just slightly out of focus as much as I enjoy what's in focus. For example, look at the branches behind for the purple mushroom bird feeder. They look like layers of tissue paper layed over each ther in intricate patterns. In other words, its all about short depth of field.

You can click on individual photos below to see the larger version, but I recommend the Dreary January Afternoon slideshow as the best way to follow along, step by step on my walk to the lake and along the beach.

Tim Nafziger is a activist, writer, organizer and web developer. He lives in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago with his wife Charletta where he attends Living Water Community Church. He is the administrator for the Young Anabaptist Radicals blog and serves as Outreach Coordinator for Christian Peacemaker Teams. For more about his life, read his first blog post.

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