I met Portland developer Matt Edlen at a construction site along Division Street. His company is building a new apartment tower in the former Cabrini-Green housing project area.
It should have been a quick shoot for a business story, but when we arrived, the construction site was surrounded by a fence and there was no one inside. All we’d be able to see in the picture is the businessman standing in front of a chainlink fence. Not too enticing.
Matt immediately said, “I could stand on your car.”
I don’t know if he’s run into this situation before, but it sounded like a great solution. Matt arrived in a taxi and it didn’t seem like something a Chicago cabbie would be thrilled with, so I volunteered my Prius. Luckily I’m not too attached to the paint job (a couple years of Chicago winters and street parking will have that effect).
Matt climbed up the doorframe and straddled the sunroof while I jumped on the rear bumper and held the camera high. I wish I had a wide frame to show the whole scene, but the only other person there was a colleague of Matt’s whom I put him into service holding a light on a stand up in the air.
Matt ended up looking a little more like Superman than the average business portrait, but it also gave a view into the construction site and it’s place in the skyline.
