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Join us for an evening of photographic artistry with
La Grange resident, Dawn Ciminboe
Monday, September 28, 2026
Open to the public
5:00 – 9:00 pm
at
fourteensixteen restaurant & bar
(full menu available)
14 W. Calendar Avenue, La Grange
Curated especially for those who love visual storytelling,
Dawn’s favorite photos will be on display and available for purchase.
Proceeds from the specialty cocktail of the evening will benefit
the Women of the Moose #973
Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/momentsb4dawn
ARTIST STATEMENT
In the written word, we consider phrases like those italicized above to be fragments; incomplete thoughts difficult to read due to a lack of flow connecting the ideas and the missing parts of speech. As the diagram below shows, a complete sentence is not only a noun, and it contains more than just descriptive adjectives about the subject. Sentences always include a verb that inserts the action into the story, and they often contain another object that adds further detail. Good sentence structure is fluid and deliberate, leading you effortlessly into the next topic.
I strive to compose my images in much the same way, telling a complete story about the photographed person, place, and event. My goal is not just documenting a unique subject, but conveying the feeling of that captured moment through imagery.
The foggy winter scene of a local urbanscape is the subject that caught my eye, but the story is in the people bundled up and rushing along the tracks,
indicating how frigid this December night really is.
Just as there are compound sentences that connect multiple subjects and additional verbs through conjunctions, I often juxtapose objects within an image to draw relationships between foreground and background subjects. By utilizing the full frame in this way, I not only capture extra details in an image — visually captioning the location of the lightning by including the sign for the La Grange Road train station — but also narrate the story within the story, creating a fresh idea and unique photograph. I achieve this for La Grange by seizing every opportunity to combine familiar village views with out of the ordinary, chance happenings.
It's not just fireworks in the sky over a local festival; it's those same fireworks from the heart of town AND the train station framed in a way never seen before.
Post editing takes this concept one step further. A talented writer will not only edit each paragraph to correct spelling and grammar errors, but also to enhance vocabulary and seamlessly connect ideas through clauses, producing an interesting to read piece with unique word use and foreshadowing phrases. Similarly, photo editing not only enables me to develop pixel perfect photographic memories, but to also combine images that are impossible for the human eye to ever see together as one in reality. Overlapping a historical photograph of Burlington Avenue with my re-created modern day image illustrates within a single picture how La Grange past fades into present time.
By juxtaposing subjects in this way (whether done in-camera or through creative and technical retouching), it is my hope to show people a different way of seeing the world, to illuminate common places and ordinary objects in a new light. When I am able to introduce my audience to a perspective of La Grange that they have never before noticed, in a composition with adequate flow, allowing their eyes to absorb the full story without needing to read a written caption, I know I have succeeded in my job as a local visual storyteller.
1416 restaurant and bar, 14 Calendar Avenue, La Grange IL 60525. For reservations call 708-469-7896 or go online to https://www.1416lagrange.com/
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