Bob Rehak took all of the photographs on this website. He is now retired and photographs for fun.
I plan to scan a series of images that I took in Uptown on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in 1974 and 1975. I’ll post them on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day this year. So be sure to check back. Christmas is not only a time of joy, but a time to count our blessings. […]
I spent most of the past week in Chicago launching the new book “Uptown: Portrait of a Chicago Neighborhood in the Mid-1970s.” The week was both exhausting and exhilarating. WTTW did a nice segment on their Chicago Tonight show. So did WGN on their noon show. However, the most exhilarating moment came on Thursday in […]
During the middle part of the 1970s, when I was photographing in Uptown, I met hundreds of people from Appalachia who had come to Chicago to find a better living. Seeing the way many lived in Uptown made me wonder about where they came from. So one summer, I packed my cameras and took a […]
I used the Rolleiflex SL66 to to shoot approximately 50 rolls of 120 film on the streets of Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood in the mid-1970s. The camera is a descendant of the Rollei twin lens camera introduced in 1929. Twins lens cameras like the Rollei dominated the market for photography outside the studio into the 1960s. […]
I used this camera to take several of the images in the Uptown portfolio as well as many landscapes. It’s a 4×5 Deardorff, handmade in Chicago by the craftsmen at L.F. Deardorff and Sons. Laben Fisher Deardorff founded the company in 1916, and was joined by the first of his three sons, Merle Deardorff the […]
From 1973 to 1977, I photographed the people of a neighborhood in Chicago called Uptown. The project was a self-assignment but many of the photos I took there were later published by the Chicago Tribune. Then the images laid in a drawer for almost 40 years. I recently rediscovered them and posted them here on […]
If you have information about any of the people or places in my Uptown photos, please email me (see contact page) or post a comment below. Your help will broaden the understanding of this neighborhood’s history. Several readers have written me with details about photos. I want to thank you all. I am updating the […]
If you’ve been reading this blog, you know that my Uptown photos have enjoyed renewed interest. As a result, I have started scanning more of the negatives from the film that I shot in the 1970s. When I was shooting back then, I carried a little note book with me. After each sequence of shots, […]
Back braces, while technically not photographic equipment, are as essential to street, bird and wildlife photography as shoes and a camera. The weight of lenses, tripods, gimbal heads, teleconverters and cameras can add up quickly. Now consider that you may have to hike miles with all this equipment to get to your location. It can […]
A lady named Joanne Asala edits a website called CompassRose.org. It contains a history of Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. She discovered my Uptown photos yesterday and asked if she could post a few on her website. I gladly agreed. There must be a great deal of interest in them. She posted the shots around 10pm last […]