Last October, Kodak discontinued their line of surface “E” Supra Endura papers due to the “declining sales” of this particular paper. I, however, didn’t know this and had recently started to use E as an alternative to my normal N surface when Central Camera had been out of stock. I found it a most agreeable and even preferable alternative. Well, those days are over, because Central Camera in Chicago is officially out of this discontinued surface and we’ll all have to make do with its close match, the semi-matte surface N.

While this is a.) old news and b.) not very interesting to most people (unlike renaming the Sears Tower - wth?), it was undereported! As color darkroom users, we don’t have all that many options as it is. (How I would love to be able to purchase a pack of color paper smaller than 8×10.) So for those of you with some E left in your yellow boxes, enjoy it while it lasts! (Although it appears that it’s still available at other vendors in unknown quantities.)

1810 W. Cortland photo by Kristen Heldmann, noted only to avoid the confusion ensuing from taking a photo of a building where a guy who took photos of buildings lived

This past fall I became familiar with the life and work of Richard Nickel, a Chicago photographer who made it his life work to preserve elements of Louis Sullivan buildings being demolished throughout the city in the mid-20th century. He photographed the buildings and collected physical artifacts from the demo sites, terra cotta ornament and even staircases. He died quite young while he was doing just this in the Chicago Stock Exchange building while it was being torn down. He was buried under rubble for a few weeks before his body was recovered. The arch of the Stock Exchange is on display behind the Art Institute next to Grant Park, and it stands as a quiet monument to Nickel, I think, for people interested in Chicago history and Nickel’s important work.

There’s a new book out on him as of 2007 and a couple of his photographs were displayed in the Lasalle Bank collection at the Cultural Center this past fall, but his work is primarily seen as architectural and technical, and not in the tradition of art (although he did study under Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan at the Institute of Design), so as a photographer, he falls into a subdued place in history. The earnest story of his life and his gorgeously-correct large format photographs were captivating to me and the work done by Richard Cahan and John Vinci make the work very accessible in book form. I was enchanted enough by what I had read to find the building that he bought and renovated before his death, the only place he had called home outside of his parents’ house in the suburbs (which isn’t to say that he was unworldly - he had been a photographer for the army after WWII) to see what had become of it. I took my meager, distorted 35mm shot of the building (seen above) and noted with some amusement that the recent tenants of the storefront had been photographers.

I was reminded again of Richard Nickel’s home again tonight after a fellow city resident and photographer, Noah Vaughn, noticed my photo of it. Wondering how one might find this photo in the archives of my photostream, I googled “Grimm’s bldg,” the name that one sees in the ornament above the second floor. I sadly found this .pdf file that indicates that this building is in danger of demolition itself. It’s one of 7 buildings on preservationchicago.org listed as most endangered.

This is, of course, terrible news.  I hope it doesn’t get torn down, but I’m glad to have seen it when I did should it ever make way for some characterless condo complex not unfamiliar to the changing neighborhood.

Read more about Richard Nickel on NPR.

I spent the morning in the color darkroom preparing a batch of photos for my semiannual mailing list — the first one in color! Those on the list are still on the list, and those who’d like to be on the list should email me with their addresses. kristen at kheldmann dot com. You needn’t worry about what continent you’re on; I will send you a photo wherever you are. So just drop me an email, don’t even worry about being cordial - an address will be sufficient!