ROGERS PARK — For the past four decades, Michael Gaylord James has been documenting everyday life in Rogers Park, one photograph at a time.
A photographer since his teenage years, when he would sell snapshots of hot rods to car magazines, James began focusing his lens on the Far North Side neighborhood back in 1976, when he and long-time friend Katy Hogan opened the Heartland Café together.
Since then he's been capturing snippets of everything from daily minutiae to major events in the neighborhood, many of which are on display at the cafe, 7000 N. Glenwood Ave., as part of James' "Sweet Home Rogers Park" exhibit.
It's on display until Sunday, when there will be a closing reception from 4-7 p.m.
The collection highlights the 40 years between 1976-2016 and is a collaboration with the Rogers Park/West Ridge Historical Society, who asked James to put a series of neighborhood photos together for a display, he said.
His pictures keep the memory of the community's past alive, covering everything from scenic beach photos, to Studs Terkel and Barack Obama, and the buildings and businesses of yore.
Some of the shots were during taken during the 1980s from his Albion Avenue beachside "bachelor pad at the edge of the Earth."
James described his photogenic view from the window: "I observed people and nature, the shifting colors of the landscape, hues and shades of the sky and lake, the motions of the waves, patterns and flow of the ice, that cop on the Loyola University beat religiously giving out parking tickets, and people playing — and making out — in the park, on the beach and in the water."
Though James began heavily photographing Rogers Park in the 1970s, he said he snapped his first photograph of Chicago was of children playing outside of a church at the Cabrini Green housing projects in spring 1961.
