With a title that has Rhythm & Booms in it, I guess I should just say now that I’m not going to have any fireworks photos in this post. Sorry to disappoint. So what did I take photos of at Rhythm & Booms then? Pretty much everything after the fireworks (well, afterwards for the most part anyway). I just couldn’t resist that smokey fog. Plus, I’ve taken photos of the fireworks for about 3 years in a row now, and this year I just wanted to sit back and enjoy the show instead of worrying about shutter speeds, ISO, aperture and timing.
Instead I worried about layering, lighting, composition and sort of got back into my street photography roots. Although, I gotta give credit to Scott Strazzante for inspiring me with his post last week, “Wrigley Light Show.” As soon as the fireworks were done, a heavy sulfuric smoke covered the entire park, eclipsing once vibrant carnival rides with a greenish, blue light that I couldn’t resist.
What made the environment even more unique was the lack of flashy lights on the rides. As much as I love colorful lights and long exposures of carnival rides, this was something different that I thought was really interesting, even haunting — sort of like the horror movie version of Adventureland.
And since there were hundreds of thousands of people hustling their way out of the park afterwards, no one even noticed me and my camera, walking against the traffic snapping frame after frame. 
Considering I don’t get to shoot stuff like this at the newspaper, it was very relaxing to just shoot with my gut and instinct instead of worrying about how it would look in print, whether or not I’m telling the right story (or any story for that matter), or worrying about getting the right mix of tight, medium and long shots.
Lukas Keapproth 