PHOTOS: Zombie March Chicago 2009
Published June 14th, 2009 by Eric Ingrum. Tagged: zombie march
Yesterday was Chicago’s second annual Zombie March. If you’re not familiar with the Zombie March, it’s pretty simple – several hundred people show up downtown dressed as zombies (makeup and all) and stumble through the busy streets of the Loop.
We were worried this year because it was raining. No one knew if that was going to be a factor or not – walking full costume in the rain sucks, but you have to remember the people who participate in this are pretty crazy to begin with. They’re not going to let a little rain get them down, right?
Last year it was just me and Laura – and neither of us went in costume. This year Gracie and Patrick also came, and everyone was decked out (present company excluded). Once things got rolling, I came across a bunch of people from last year too.
Back when I posted about the 2008 Zombie March I was using Jill’s camera (which was a little foreign to me). Since then I’ve picked up a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XS. I love it. Aside from not doing video, it’s pretty much perfect. I decided I was going to go all manual for the shoot instead of auto like last time. I took about 400 shots in total. The final set winded up being 48 photos.
The photos didn’t take me nearly as long to do this time. It’s only been 24 hours and they’re already up. I pick the best 50 or so and went to work on color correction and the like. Over the last year I guess I’ve actually learned how to compose a goddamn shot so there wasn’t as much to fix. Most of the shots were in focus, and I got a nice narrow depth of field like I wanted. Amp up some reds, alter the exposure and crop. Simple. The hardest part for me is still leaving 350 shots on the cutting room floor.
We actually managed to find everyone this time. It was raining for a while, so no one really showed up early. At about 2pm big groups started coming it. I passed out some Double Feature flyers and talked to a bunch of people. I didn’t want to take a lot of the pictures at the meet up spot because it was in front of the bean . . . otherwise known as the biggest eyesore in Chicago.
Today was also the Scientology protest and some kind of naked bike ride thing, so there were a lot of characters around. The turnout was really good, especially considering the rain. Just over a thousand people showed up this year, making it much bigger than last year.
There were about three blocks worth of people marching at any given time. The group went from Millennium Park to the Daley Plaza, and then headed off to Navy Pier. You might think the novelty of the whole thing would wear off after you do it once . . . you dress up weird, you walk through the city, people give you weird looks. But then I caught this woman.
How could you ever get enough of that?
The entire set of 48 photos is available for free on flickr under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license. You can also tag yourself and others in the Facebook gallery.