Since I at the moment have got a cold, feeling like shit and am bored, I'm gonna tell you a little story from quite a long time ago when I still today wish I had brought a more proper camera than I did. I also wish that I was a much more into photography back then as I am today, which I wasn't. At the time I couldn't be bothered bringing my Minolta Dynax 7000i SLR with me, so I borrowed a small point and shoot camera (I even think I just bought disposable Fujifilm or Kodak cameras the first trip, not sure).
In 1997 and 1998, I made a couple of trips to a then pen pal/friend/girlfriend or what ever to call her, who lived just outside the relatively small city of Michigan City, Indiana, USA. I actually got in contact with her again a few years ago on Facebook, but today she's way more religious than she was back then and want nothing to do with the atheist that I am (I wasn't as outspoken back then either). I'm not exactly crying over that...
Anyhow Michigan City is (if I remember it right) about an hour or maybe an hour and a half hour drive east of Chicago, Illinois (it's on the shores of Lake Michigan and on the beach you could see the city line of Chicago in the distance which could have been a great shot...damn it). I was also told by my friend's dad that we should take the big interstate I 94 and could not by any means take any road that went through Gary, Indiana (the birth place of Michael Jackson, I believe) since it was (and still is) so run down with violent crimes that the people were/are basically deserting the city. I've seen photos from Gary and it's looking like Detroit is looking today, it's just smaller but equally (if not more) dangerous.
Anyhow, I took photos of my visits to Sears Tower (second tallest building in the world at the time) and places like the ferris wheel at Navy Pier, around the Adler Planetarium and the Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park (the fountain known from the title sequence of Married With Children). I took photos even when we by mistake parked a few stories up in a parking garage and in some way ended up in the lobby of Playboy Enterprises Inc. (now moved to California I think) while coming from the garage. I took photos of the Chicago skyline from Navy Pier, which was really awesome but those photos turned out shit since it was with a crap camera and it was at night time. But what I today wish I had taken photos of was the city and not the more tourist-y parts. We got lost a couple of times during a few different trips to Chicago, once we ended up somewhere in the western parts towards O'Hare Airport and those areas didn't seem too bad, but twice we got lost on the South Side. Once was at night, didn't know where we were, but it looked pretty bad, and we stopped at a gas station covered in steel bars and where the clerk was sitting behind bullet proof glass. It was a bit weird and a little uncomfortable but today I wish I've had a proper camera and would have taken some time to take some shots (with the camera)...
At the last day of my second trip we got lost the second time on the South Side of Chicago. That time I ended up at a McDonald's restaurant asking for the directions to the Museum of Science and Industry, and found myself being the only white person there, which wasn't really a good thing I suppose. No one was acting hostile, but I was completely stared down and I saw people who looked very likely to be super high on drugs, and some sketchy looking guy wanted to sell me different stuff from a bag filled of (I suppose) stolen electronics. Really cheap, but no... But a giant but fairly friendly black guy from the kitchen gave me some vague road directions though. Through memory and the aide of Google Maps, I've come up with that it must have been the West 51st Street just after the exit from I 90/I 94 interstates. On the map it doesn't show any McDonald's restaurant anymore, but this was 18 years ago and things change. But I remember the Cook County Criminal Court and I also remember seeing hundreds of police cars close by and since the Chicago Police Motor Maintenance Division is next to the Court, that explains it and things fall into place. What I do remember more is that while riding in my friend's car I saw what I've only seen in movies before, people warming themselves from the heat of fires lit in barrels (this was in February and it was cold), derelict houses and sketchy looking people while going through some really bad looking blocks. I saw cops running from their cars into what might have been a run down, barricaded building from a smaller housing project. After a while the neighbourhood suddenly turned different and to the better and we passed the big complex that is the University of Chicago and after that we found signs to the museum that we were looking for.
At the time it was very far from what I had ever seen before when it comes to derelict houses and neighbourhoods and in a surrounding that is among the most dangerous in all of the U.S. Through documentaries I've learned that more Americans have died from violent crimes in Chicago in the last 15 years than from both their wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Again, today I wish I would have brought my proper SLR with me or even better, that I had the cameras that I have today but also that I would have had the guts to do some photography there. At the time it seemed too dangerous to even stop the car again after the break at McDonald's asking for directions, and it probably was. Still I think about it now and then (I did today). Maybe I should make a shout to Chuck Jines and make a trip over there to do some street photography together with him...
And also, if you're going somewhere, domestic or international, bring a camera. Or two...