My friend and I are in downtown Minneapolis at dusk for a concert, and as we approach the entrance from ground level, I see a bridge one story up with folks strolling toward the venue amid some lights. The shapes of the silhouettes of the lights, power lines, and people really caught my eye.
October 17, 2025. OnePlus 12 cell phone, 13.3mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 140mm), f/2.6, 1/30, ISO 320.
Here’s another photo taken from my seat on an Amtrak train outside of St. Paul. I was using my cell phone in manual mode, which it turns out is a pretty decent camera (and gives me a live preview so I know exactly what I’m getting), and while I wish the bright overcast clouds hadn’t blown out, I’m happy with the blur on the left thanks to the proximity of that side and the sharpness of the rest of the train and tracks. Another nice shot of what I would have thought was a scene you wouldn’t be able to see anymore.
October 14, 2024. OnePlus 12 cell phone, 6mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 23mm), f/1.6, 1/320, ISO 100.
Look at all that beautiful texture! The bricks, the panels where signs used to be, the remaining sign, the shadows, the glass bricks, and so on. Converting this to black and white was a decision that worked really well. This diner wasn’t quite in my neighborhood, but it was one of my favorite breakfast spots while it was open, and I had a New Year’s Day tradition of heading there for a plate of biscuits & gravy with eggs over easy on top. One of the best breakfasts Chicago ever had to offer, I’ll say. Another diner is open there now, and it’s good, it’s good. I sure miss that original diner, though.
June 9, 2022. Samsung S24+ cell phone, 5.4mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/1.8, 1/420, ISO 40.
With birds as with people: What looks like the cool new trendy place to live slowly becomes that place that lets everyone in, and the trendsetters move along to some new hot spot. This dead trunk was clearly very popular with woodpeckers for a time — I occasionally saw them very nearby but rarely saw them in these nests — and eventually they just packed up and moved out. Of course, they make their own housing, so once a trunk they love has become so dead that the insects they love have moved on, they can move on too.
November 4, 2023. Nikon D850 (FX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm at 220mm, f/8, 1/500, ISO 100.
I’m visiting a museum in Minneapolis and, in a hallway, I see that something hit that window hard. I wasn’t there to see that happen, but I was there before they repaired it to see how cool the cracked pattern was, and that cone brings a little more color to the scene. I’ve mentioned my fondness for glass from some of the earliest published photos here, and this was another look at how it acts in the real world.
March 3, 2024. Samsung S24+ cell phone, 5.4mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/1.8, 1/750, ISO 40.
We’ve seen aerial views of three of the major cities in my life — Chicago, Austin, and Minneapolis — finally here’s one of Boston, where I was born. It was a really nice vacation and, every time I visit there, I fall in love with the city all over again. It was great to see it like this, with puffy clouds and all that sun lighting up the city. It’s such a great place to be.
August 13, 2023. Samsung S24+ cell phone, 5.9mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 28mm), f/2, 1/1,300, ISO 25.
A few years ago, I was in the office for a few minutes after everyone else who had showed up that day had left. During the pandemic, the company had put in both timers and motion detectors, so as I walked down a dark hallway with lots of glass to the sides and at the front, the exit sign bounced around. It’s hard to tell what’s reflecting what. It was a cool effect. Not long after I took this photo, I submitted it along with half a dozen or so others to a very large stock photo agency, which accepted me. I thought it was a natural for either editorial or marketing materials, but, well, I’m still waiting to become an overnight sensation.
November 28, 2022. Samsung S24+ cell phone, 5.9mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 28mm), f/2, 1/40, ISO 320.
The local transit authority would like you to know that you cannot use these stairs to enter the El station.
I do less street photography than I would like to, and a lot of it, including the street photography photos I’ve published here, has been of those moments where I see a composition and have to capture it before it goes away. This is something of an eternal photo. Maybe the CTA will clean those stairs sometime, or freshen up those signs. Maybe, just maybe, they did in the last six years! Even if they did: The light, the grime, the rust, the signs will outlive us all.
February 15, 2019. Samsung Galaxy S8+ cell phone, focal length 4.25mm (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/1.7, 1/120, ISO 64.
I’ve published a handful of dragonfly photos here, including one a couple of months ago of a photo in which I caught it hovering to protect its territory. Here’s another one, and I love this photo because that dragonfly is tack-sharp from a distance, including those wings that are just frozen in the thinnest split second, against the pond, which is far enough in the distance that it picks up the blur of depth of field. It’s a personal and a technical challenge to accomplish that, and I am really happy that I took a photo that came out this well.
August 21, 2016. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), Nikon 70–300mm lens at 300mm (35mm equivalent: 450mm), f/5.6, 1/2,000, ISO 800.
A painted turtle starts to crawl out of the pond with its foreleg extended, looking a whole lot like an arm reaching for something off-screen. It’s just a cute shot.
May 22, 2016. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), Nikon 70–300mm lens at 300mm (35mm equivalent: 450mm), f/11, 1/180, ISO 800.
Here’s a bit of a rarity: milkweed pods not covered with milkweed bugs. I love how milkweed pods look, whether they’re fresh and bursting in Summer or brown and exhausted in Winter. Here are the former, seen through the macro closeup lens, giving me many shades of green and yellow in the July afternoon light.
July 25, 2010. Nikon D90 (DX sensor), 105mm Nikon macro lens (35mm equivalent: 155mm), f/18, 1/125, ISO 640.
It is a perfect Summer day as I wander around the nature preserve. There’s a small hill at the park’s east end, and it’s covered with nice small yellow flowers — my best guess is wingstem, yellow asters. I’m still using my little point-and-shoot, but it does give me some control, so I dial in a little depth of focus and find an angle that gives me this composition. This was one that I printed to hang on a wall, and whenever, in the depths of the gray slog of Midwestern Winter, a friend mentions wishing for the return of sun and color, sometimes I’ll send them along to remind them that yes, the wait will be worth it.
July 13, 2008. Canon PowerShot SD850 IS, focal length 6.63 (35mm equivalent: 40mm), f/8, 1/160, ISO 80.
I’m at a jazz club with a couple of friends and the band is just great. We’re sitting up front, and I’m next to the baby grand piano and near the bass sax player, who has tucked the huge case for his sax under the piano. There is a nice bright red light underneath the piano, and it’s lighting two sides of the piano leg and the textured, sparkly sax case, and this composition jumps out at me. I’m really happy with this photo, as it brings you in and encourages you to linger.
September 15, 2025. OnePlus 12 cell phone, 13.3mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 140mm), f/2.6, 1/24, ISO 2,000.
If you’ve been reading this site fairly regularly, you may remember how much fun I had one day when two bullfrogs decided to brawl over territory. Here’s a counterpoint to that competitive pair, as these guys are perfectly content to sit together, chilling out as they stare off into space, as frogs (and, to be honest, just about every form of animal life, including us) like to do when they get the chance. That’s a pretty nice way to spend a Summer afternoon.
August 4, 2019. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm lens at 340mm (35mm equivalent: 510mm), f/16, 1/30, ISO 800.
Today we return to the good old Meatpacking District back in its great earlier incarnation, because I loved not so much the fire escape but the counterweight that would let the last flight of the fire escape swing down so people could safely reach the ground. I converted the photo to black and white because it’s a great batch of textures that come out nicely in this format: the grated door, the glass blocks, the bricks, the shadows, and especially the counterweight.
There isn’t a whole lot of information about Hanke Iron & Wire Works on the web now, and it felt like there was actually more when I took this photo back in ’09. It seemed to be most active in Chicago in the first couple of decades of the 20th century, but I remember seeing mention of a relocation toward the end of the company’s existence. A cider house a few blocks from my apartment mentions that there was a similar counterweight on its building in 2015, when it took over that building. There isn’t much more info than that now.
September 5, 2009. Nikon D90 (DX sensor), Nikon DX 18–105mm lens at 52mm (35mm equivalent: 78mm), f/13, 1/1,000, ISO 1,250.