At the end of september, Sara Suppan and I boarded a Chicago-bound plane. We'd been filling an old pasta jar with spare change since 2013, which finally had enough in it two buy us roundtrips to the windy city.

We stayed with our friend Cami Rose on the 19th floor of a high-rise near south side. She was also our local guide for the majority of our trip, and an excellent one at that. Combined with Sara's planning skills, we were able to go to nearly every major art museum in the Chicago area.

One of the most influential parts of the trip (aside from the Zelda Symphony I attended), was going to the Art Institute of Chicago. Some of the classical paintings that I saw in the museum have altered my thinking about the current equilibrium in photography, something I hope to explore in the following months. I was mostly paying attention to the painters use of light and value on their subject. Unlike photography there isn't necessarily a "correct exposure" that is accepted as the norm.

Upon my return to Minneapolis, I attended Gene Pease and Levi Tijerina's Adventure and Story Photography Workshop. I thought about the paintings I saw in Chicago throughout the day, and tried to explore my use of shadow while taking photographs during the shooting session of the day. The workshop in a way felt like an extension of my trip, an additional educational experience. You can see photos from that here.

These are photographs I took while in the city from September 29th-October 2nd.

If you are curious about any of the art that has been photographed as part of this post, the photos filenames contain the artists/pieces name.