Photographers Blog

Chicago, Illinois

By Jim Young

Ava and Jaidon have two moms. Theresa Volpe is “mommy” and her partner Mercedes Santos is “mama”.

GALLERY: TWO MOMS, TWO KIDS, ONE FAMILY

They have been together for over 20 years. They met each other while working for the same publishing company in Chicago in 1992. Theresa says that Mercedes is the person she was meant to spend her life with, she just happens to be another woman.

In 2002, they decided to find an anonymous donor so they could have their own biological children. First came Ava, now a quiet and insightful 8-year-old talented musician, and then her brother Jaidon, an energetic and playful four year old.

Theresa and Mercedes are part of a lawsuit to get same-sex marriage legalized in Illinois. There are nine U.S. states that recognize same-sex marriage, and Illinois currently has legislation waiting to be voted on in the House after the Illinois State Senate approved a bill to legalize same-sex marriage on Valentine’s Day this year.

After Illinois legalized civil unions on June 1, 2011, Theresa and Mercedes were one of 30 couples who had their ceremony in Millennium Park, but felt it was just the first step to their ultimate goal – to be legally recognized as married.

Chicago, Illinois

By John Gress

It’s not every day that an assignment teaches you something about your own childhood.

When I was 7 years old my father, who shared my name, passed away and when I looked down today, I saw a boy, Ronnie Chambers Jr., who is about the same age as I was back then, sitting at my feet with RIP carved in the back of his hair. He was there mourning the loss of his father, who also shared his name.

Ronnie Chambers was shot in the head on January 26. His mother Shirley Chambers, has lost all four of her children to gun violence.

Chicago, Illinois

By John Gress

UPDATE: January 24th

You never know how the assignment is going to go when you decide to put on the same clothes you had on the day before. Why? Because they smell like smoke!

I made a return trek to the ice castle today, an abandoned warehouse which has been burning for three days. Quite surprising considering most of the building has collapsed and is covered in inches of ice.

While covering the blaze today, I photographed firefighter Michael De Jesus covered in icicles. When he told me his name I asked, “Do you know Charley?”

By Jim Young

Remote cameras can produce great pictures, but they are not always easy to set up. To put a camera in a position that would be impossible for a person to shoot from can produce interesting images, but it takes creativity and a lot of technical planning.

In March I went for a walk-through with organizers and news media for the upcoming NATO Summit to be held in Chicago in May. For years now we have set up remotes on the ceiling looking down on the meeting table for political summits and we wanted to set one up for this summit as well. We took a look at what would be the summit room, which at the time was completely empty and as bland as any other empty convention center room. In the week before the summit it would be transformed into a polished meeting room for world leaders and we hoped that we would be allowed to mount a remote camera as well. The idea was to shoot an overall photo of all the leaders sitting at the table for their meeting surrounding the giant NATO seal on the floor. The only way this could be done was with a remote camera because with the height we would need to be at to achieve the image, the camera could only be mounted up in the ceiling among the overhead lights.

We had never actually done this at a NATO summit before. The previous overhead cameras had been at G8, G20 and Nuclear Summits run by different organizers. In the final week before the summit we asked again. At first the answer seemed to be no, but then the officials suddenly came back with a “Yes, you can put up the camera, but you have to put it up immediately.” The other stipulation was that we could not use radio transmitters to trigger the shutter of the camera during the meeting; it would have to be hardwired with long cables.