On a fiercely hot Saturday afternoon where the only shade is the shadow he casts, a worker takes a long walk from an office at one end of these grain silos to another at the far end.

This wheat mill was only about a mile and a half west of downtown Chicago. Owned by ADM (Archer Daniels Midland), it was an active milling site. It was demolished in early 2021, and the site is currently a parking lot. News reports from the time suggest that there will be luxury development there. But I love this photo because these silos were old and beat up, the worker brings some scale and human interest, and the conversion to black-and-white brought out more detail and gave it a vintage quality, befitting a time when Chicagoans had an active milling site so close to residential and white-collar office neighborhoods.

September 5, 2009. Nikon D90 (DX sensor), 70–300mm DX Nikon zoom lens at 45mm (35mm equivalent: 67mm), f/13, 1/2,500, ISO 1,250.