Traffic was crawling, and as long as I had to crawl along with it, I thought I'd play with a camera. Set the focus and exposure manually (so the camera would fire immediately and not waste time focusing and exposing) and stuck the camera at arm's length toward the passenger side window (which was rolled down to eliminate reflections) to see what I could catch.
What I caught was a little slice of life on the freeway while idling. A different kind of street photography. Photography while stuck ON the street.
I saw the lady in her business suit talking on a cell phone. So I aimed and fired. Taking care of business in the backup? Phoning in that she'd be late to her next appointment? Just yakking to pass time?
I didn't see the truck driver giving me the skunk eye -- that was a bonus. Little did he suspect that his route that day was going to take him to the internets.
Even the accidental odd angle adds some tension to the scene.
One thing my wife and I noticed when we moved to Chicago about 18 years ago was that people tended not to get aggravated while sitting in Chicago's many traffic james. They just take it in stride here. It's a part of the deal, and it's no big deal.
Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.
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