Harlem has a lot of contrasts - the history of this area is very rich with art and culture, but at one point was also marred by high crime and drugs. There are very expensive houses, and at the same time, homeless men (see previous picture) living on the streets.... this was another contrast I saw - the person who lives in the apartment above obviously cares about how they live, and have taken the time to decorate their window, while the person that decided to deface the shop door downstairs didn't care too much...

The discussion about capturing the 'soul' of a city started in Ilan Bresler's blog post has started to catch on, and its nice to see other people weigh in with their opinion. I had originally commented about the approach to take on a series that I learned in class, but as you can see on this blog (http://kenrathke.shutterchance.com), there are other methods. Ken has attempted to picture what the 'soul' of Chicago is by taking pictures of things he feels is the soul of the city, or what the city means to him. I think this is a great approach, because unlike people, I think cities can have different sides to them - as in more than one 'soul'. So it would be nice to see how Chicago looks to Ken, as opposed to someone else, or what the general tourist books describe as to what the soul of Chicago should be and thereby maybe showing Chicago as it has not been seen by anyone else...