Though the world has changed Jay still feels more connected to the past. He can relieve these moments over an over by going through his pervious photos. King states that you can’t capture the same images on the streets today. Due to modern technology people have changed their behavior and are not doing anything entertaining. As a result, he feels a slight disconnect with the current culture, missing the days when it wasn’t hard to capture an amazing candid photograph.

JAY KING

Armed with only a Leica—silent and reliable—Jay King stalked the streets of Chicago for more than 20 years. All the time recording, like a spy, the city’s slightest movements. Although he has occasionally ventured to the east and west coasts, he always returned to Chicago—back to the people and the streets and the coffee shops, amusement park and auto shows.

Jay was born in Chicago 1944 and lived his first 18 years in the Ravenswood Manor section of the city. Culture, art, music, and photography were all a part of his childhood. His father—Lee King, an advertising art director—had a Rolleiflex, and Jay remembers peering through the cross-grid of the view finder as a nine-year-old, as the camera sat atop a tripod. Later, at ages that are less distinctly recalled, there would be other cameras that he was allowed to use. One day his father gave him a Kodak “Tri-Chem-Pack” and together they learned printing and developing.

Jay didn’t study photography in college but followed his musical interests instead. During this time, he continued to make photographs, listen to music and search for something to do with his life. He also worked for various commercial photographers. When he finished college, it became apparent to him that photography was an important force in his life. He took pictures of Hugh Edwards who he would meet and talk to from time to time. In 1967 Edwards curated an exhibit for Illinois Art Council. The exhibit traveled around the state of Illinois for two years. Inspired by this early success, Jay set out to establish himself in the world of photography.

With his right eye looking through the view finder he perfected a technique of keeping his left eye open to watch the scene before him. He works quickly, quietly and alone. Often, he says, he’s gone before people know they have been photographed. He only photographs non-events. While at the dragstrip, he concentrates on the boys with their cars, not the machines roaring down the strip. At the auto show it’s not this year’s new models, it’s the guys with the dust rags. His photos are a visual historical record of the past to be shared. King feels that the camera is a great way to record the culture of the time. He searches for interesting moments that capture a feeling, expression, or mood. Jay doesn’t have a message to express through his photography he just wants to share the times, cultures, and eras that he has seen.

And eventually, like money in the bank, the images become richer and richer. We can look beyond the novelty of changing hair and skirt lengths and look through the consistent eyes of a talented photographer at what he calls those “thin slices of time.” Add them together and they make up 20 years of bits and pieces of a city. Moments forgotten and now remembered. Or maybe moments forgotten and now remembered. Or maybe moments never experienced by anyone but Jay King, and only now visible to us.