cold

I had found the location one day while trying to access a nearby location; a trail ran alongside the historic Illinois and Michigan Canal, and less than half a mile from the parking lot, I'd walked past the ruins of a late 1800s steel mill. Now, it was part of a county park in the far southwest suburbs of Chicago, a recent acquisition. Surprisingly, few areas were fenced off. Except for the steepest dropoffs, it was open and accessible.

Now, weeks later, I arrive with Claudine. It's almost an hours drive, so we have plenty of time to talk. It's late afternoon, the weak winter sun hanging low over the horizon. It's 36 degrees, but at least there isn't much wind.

We walk in, and begin with a set of concrete arches; actually, in a rear chamber I hadn't even found the first time. We're a few hundred feet from a busy commuter rail line, and even closer to a small road serving local industrial facilities, and no one can see us. The concrete walls shield us from prying eyes.

We walk through the structure, carefully choose locations, talk thorough sequencing, positions, angles. Those decisions made, Claudine drops her clothing into a neat pile. Here, in full sun and out of the light breeze, the cold isn't too bad. We spend perhaps 10 minutes on the first few sets of shots.

Covered up again, we walk to a second location, a few hundred meters to the north. This one is a jumble of concrete ruins, sunken below ground level, guarded only by a "warning, dangerous ruins" sign. Moving through this jumbled landscape without care could indeed be dangerous. We climb down slowly, choose two spots. The challenge here is to edit things out, to simplify the composition among the chaos of rubble. We work with two small openings in the rock. Again, we're out of sight. Trucks drive by and no one sees a thing.

The third set is a little more challenging, because it's in the open, fully exposed. The sun is also about to slip below the horizon, and now there is a distinct chill in the air. Claudine stands on worn and eroded concrete polygons and rectangles, carefully avoiding the glass of broken beer bottles in the depressions, her smooth naked skin contrasting with the cold, hard substrate. We work quickly, pausing twice when people bicycle past on the trail barely a hundred feet away. We almost don't see or hear the pickup truck that follows, and Claudine is caught in the open this time. All she can do is drop to the cold ground and not move. The driver is thinking of other things though, eyes straight ahead. He never looks in our direction, never knows what he missed.

We return to the car a few moments later. I've only brought three rolls of film, intentionally, to minimize the length of the shoot on such a cold day. 108 frames. The whole thing has taken only an hour, with easily half of that devoted to picking locations. Now we drive back north, talking about the experience, laughing about almost being seen, comparing notes on our past experiences. She says something that surprises me, something I need to think about a little.

We part ways, already thinking about what to do next time.