In a dimly lit room at Columbia’s Museum of Contemporary Photography, dozens of people gathered around a projector screen as award-winning photographer Bob Thall presented his work with street scenes through a series of slides.
Thall, who is known for decades of photographing Chicago’s urban landscape, also served on faculty at Columbia from 1976 to 2017 and chaired the now-renamed photography department from 1999 to 2011.
He returned to campus on Thursday, March 12 to discuss his long-term commitment to large-format black and white photography, as well as his most recent project documenting cities across the United States titled “Some American Cities.”
Thall started taking photographs around the city of Chicago in 1971 with the goal of critiquing architectural work. Later on in his career, Thall became more interested in the stories of people who lived behind the facades of the buildings that he was photographing.
Thall has had several successful projects throughout his career, though his street scene work led him to receive numerous awards, including a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, Graham Foundation Grant and Fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council.
One of the people in attendance, junior photography major Avery Rusel, said that Thall’s work was “explorative.”
“You can see it in some of the work, too, but he talks about how he is exploring the lack of downtown areas, and the lack of city life and how it used to be,” he said.
Geri Rudich, one individual in attendance, said that Thall’s city scene work was “evolution” to her.
“I have known Bob since grammar school,” Rudich said. “I learned a lot about Bob, his devotion to city life, and why he cares about cities, how they’ve evolved, and how sterile, unfortunately, they have been called.”
Thall’s lecture showcased a variety of his early work such as his “Southeast Chicago and Northwest Indiana” project, a long term assignment that Thall spent over a decade photographing industrial and working-class residential urban landscape. He also spoke about his most recent project titled “Some American Cities,” which features a strict template of only black and white imagery with large open city scenes.
Thall told the Chronicle that suburban and urban life is “important to human life,” and that his street scene work highlights the “lament” of these lifestyles.
Something from Thall’s lecture that stuck out to Zero Kellythompson, a graduate student studying photography, was the effect of lighting throughout different cities.
But Kellythompson said that in Chicago, all the lighting feels the same.
“I have lived in other places and I have felt that way too,” they said. “You can’t actually come back to it, unlike in Chicago, where it happens everyday, all the time.”
Thall concluded his lecture by reiterating a core sentiment around his work — an expression of sorrow and complaint.
Jennifer Sauzer, head of access services and assessment at Columbia’s library, said that Thall’s lecture made her gain a deeper appreciation for his work and the thought behind the photographs.
“My background is not in photography so it’s really a treat to hear somebody talk so passionately about their work,” Sauzer said, “and also touch on the people that came before them, his peers, his inspiration and his love of the city,”
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