Hot city night

Yesterday I decided that I did want to shoot after all, just not with most of the local people who are offering at the moment. So instead I sent a text to Chrystyne and asked her if she was in the mood to shoot. The answer came back in minutes, "how about tonight?

Perfect, because it was too hot to do anything by day anyway.

We walked the few blocks from her place to the elevated train. She wore a very short and very tight black dress, and packed two changes of clothes in a bag. We took the train to the south loop, got off near the Board of Trade building and started shooting on LaSalle Street. It was still hot, 87 degrees and humid, and with lots of people on the streets.

We worked our way north on LaSalle, stopping twice for creative on-street changes of clothes. We ended near the Merchandise Mart, then hopped back on a northbound train.

There's so much light downtown at night, it was easy to shoot at 1/30th second most of the time at EI 640.

On the return train ride, there was a young guy passed out in his own vomit, in the midst of a crowded train car. As we traded mass transit for a car and did a short drive to get a snack, the craziness continued.... Three times, someone stopped in the middle of the street for no apparent reason, just parked mid block in the path of traffic. Then, cop cars converging from three directions, sliding to a stop a block in front of me, dragging two guys out of a van and throwing them up against the side of the vehicle... I didn't stay around long enough to see what that was about.

After dropping off Chryssy, I stopped at Exit about 1:00 am to see the post-apocalyptic burlesque performance. It was bad, actually. Bad fire dancing, worse than most of what I've seen from stoner girls on California beaches. And a too-fast strip tease by a cute girl who spent too much time in a corner where half the audience couldn't see her.

The edgy burlesque craze has perhaps been good in the sense of shaking things up a little, but the act gets old after seeing it maybe twice. Fire and nipple tape and grinders throwing sparks from metal plates can only mask a lack of experience and discipline for so long. There are things a girl with classical dance background can do that most of these girls can't. It will be interesting to see where this trend goes in the near future. Right now, its just overdone.

There were a few friends and acquaintances in the room, Natalya and Kristin and Peter and others. There was another offer to model, one I'll probably take because she's got a really interesting face. Then there was a bizarre moment when one of the performers interrupted my conversation with a friend... This particular performer being someone I've declined to photograph in the past.

This morning I worked after only four hours of sleep, but it was all worthwhile. When I woke from an afternoon nap, the heat had broken, the humidity fallen, it was in the 70s with a nice breeze as night fell.