APEKS by Chipka

Photography • Urban/Cityscape • posted on Feb 25, 2013

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Description

I am interested in the interiors of bookstores: one may find vast, untold treasures within. I work across the street from a bookstore. It’s possible to buy new books there, but its main area of focus is used books, rare books, unexpected books. I shop there, regularly: at least once a month. Working in the field of market research is a lot better than working in the labor-intensive field of moving and equipment delivery, but I don’t get to photograph the denizens of a particular truck-yard. Because I work in a swanky part of Chicago (across the street from a book store) I have learned to content myself with photographing other things…the back ends of things. The undersides of things. The ugly sides of pretty things. It comes as no surprise that I’d stand behind a book store, aiming my camera at the non-book-related aspects of the store. I saw pipes…conduits of some near-cryptic sort. I saw oxidized metal. I saw tags, drawn in magic marker, quite possibly by a very young, bravado-burdened market researcher (“Apeks” exists as a bit of latrinalia [bathroom graffiti] in one of the men’s rooms at my current place of residence.) I didn’t realize that there was a tag on the back of my favorite neighborhood book store. I didn’t know that the tag-autographer has some tenuous link with my current place of employment. I was only interested in the conduits, the rust, and the brilliantly-yellow paint smeared over a protective rectangle of concrete. I liked the lines, the colors, the mood of what I saw, and so I snapped a photograph. I captured “Apeks” but didn’t realize that until much, much later. I wonder where else “Apeks” might appear. Perhaps, in time, I will find out. Until then, here is a single photograph. As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great week.

Comments (15)

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Faemike55

10:03PM | Mon, 25 February 2013

Very cool capture one wonders, don't they?

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netot

11:11PM | Mon, 25 February 2013

Great capture. Gray Curves contrasting with yellow rectangle. excellent

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durleybeachbum

12:34AM | Tue, 26 February 2013

I love that bold compo, and the letters exercise the mind.

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auntietk

12:41AM | Tue, 26 February 2013

I love the internet. I look stuff up all the time. Apparently apeks shows up in Chicago more times (and in fancier tag styles) than on these pipes and on the bathroom wall. It's still a mystery to me, but if you google "apeks chicago" and check out some of the photos, you'll see eivdence of a more far-reaching phenom. I love your photo ... the composition with those pipes and the yellow bit, backed by Old Chicago Brick, is quite satisfying.

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treasureprints

12:46AM | Tue, 26 February 2013

Very cool photo.

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Wolfenshire

12:50AM | Tue, 26 February 2013

It's cool the way you and the others that do this kind of photography can find such interesting things that most of us would just brush pass.

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photosynthesis

1:27AM | Tue, 26 February 2013

A great found abstract with appealing textures. I've always found pipes fascinating for some reason & this reminds me that I have a photo of some piping I took on my trip to the southwest that I never got around to posting. Plus, thanks for the new word I learned - latrinalia...

whaleman

2:10AM | Tue, 26 February 2013

I'm sure you will see more of it. In my experience taggers drop their un-art as frequently as possible whereas graffiti artists and their artistic works are less common.

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