This is the last of a sequence of photos I took as they started to climb the stairs. They were a couple of stairs apart at first, then she waited for him, then she leaned back and he leaned in — click, click, click. Patience is always rewarded.
(I’d been pretending to take pictures of the ferris wheel for a couple of moments, hoping they’d go up the stairs at all to add some human interest and scale to the scene. They gave me more interest than I’d hoped.)
November 3, 2018. Samsung Galaxy S8+ cell phone, 4.25mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/1.53, 1/30, ISO 160.
I’m just walking down the street in Austin one evening, minding my own business, glancing in an occasional door or window along the commercial strip, and, well.
Sometimes you just have to stop, take the picture, check and see that there is not a clothing store through that door, and go back to minding your own business.
October 20, 2022. Samsung S20+ cell phone, 5.9mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 28mm), f/2, 1/30, ISO 320.
One day, I’m sitting in my beloved easy chair, just minding my own business, when a sudden rainstorm splats hard into my living room windows. This window faces southeast, the direction the storm came from, and you’ll have to forgive the reflections and whatnot, but I just liked how one moment the view from here was just another Chicago street (with notes) and the next moment, it was a trippy little scene inspired by that one magnificent shroom that made everything in my field of vision look like it was melting. (I’ve actually never done any psychedelic drugs, but I hear that can happen.)
March 26, 2024. Canon PowerShot G7 Mark II (1-inch sensor), 36.8mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 100mm), f/8, 1/20, ISO 125.
Dragonflies are super cool. They have their personalities, with different colors being more active or more chill, and each of them has its own personality too — mostly, more or less aggressive toward protecting its territory.
Red-veined darters (I have no idea who comes up with these names but would like to have a drink with them and get some insights) can be super chill. and I took this photo using my macro lens from a very short distance, like a few inches above it, glad none of the shadows were of me. I took a few photos, because it’s an awkward angle and distance to work at, and sure enough some of them were no good at all, but all you need is one keeper. I’m really happy to have captured both the facets on the eyes and the detail on the thorax.
November 1, 2015. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), 105mm Nikon macro lens (35mm equivalent: 155mm), f/16, 1/125, ISO 400.
I love glass — I’ve made blown and fused glass and neon art, and I just like how glass acts in the world. It reflects, it refracts, it bends and twists and turns. Some say it’s always a liquid, but some say cats are liquids, so I leave definitions to others and appreciate both of them for what they are.
Anyway, one lunchtime I was walking along the Chicago River on Upper Wacker Drive and noticed Marina City (the “corncob towers”) reflected in the apparently very funky window glass at 111 W. Wacker. At that angle, there’s a building visible between the two Marina City towers, so I aligned the three as best I could and tapped away on my phone. This was my favorite.
July 27, 2024. OnePlus 12 cell phone, 13.3mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 140mm), f/2.75, 1/140, ISO 50.
This one isn’t really much of a photography post per se. I love my neighborhood in Chicago for so many reasons, and one reason is that there is an actual goddamn blacksmith just a couple of blocks away from my apartment, and every so often he offers a class, on something of an If You Know, You Know basis. The class I took involved making that bottle opener that’s on top of the anvil, which was the first anvil I ever saw outside of a cartoon.
March 15, 2024. Samsung S20+ cell phone, 5.9mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 28mm), f/2, 1/60, ISO 200.
One of the debates in photography is whether photographs are true. Maybe I’ll ramble about that sometime. In the pre-AI days, and in the pre-Photoshop days, many of them were still lies, even completely unedited. We pick not only what you see and what you don’t but also how you see it.
No one who gets this close to an iris sees anything like this, and that’s one of the nice things about cameras: You dial in some settings and turn a pleasant but unremarkable iris into a swirl of color and shape and form. I took a bunch of these photos from ever so slightly different angles and distances, and this one made me happiest.
June 8, 2013. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), Nikon 105mm macro lens (35mm equivalent: 160mm), f/8, 1/1,000, ISO 400.
Sometimes we hope or pretend it’s Art, and sometimes it’s just a moment we happen to be near. This struck me as a real-life version of what a Far Side cartoon might look like of the situation: something in a planter deciding it wanted to live the free life, and then discovering it was only going to get so far. The plant leaning over the front left corner adds a little touch to that thought, maybe saying, “Nice try, but we could have told you” as it surveys the results.
There are photos that are unremarkable except for what goes on in our heads when we see them, and when we share them, we cross our fingers and hope others see it the same way. Even if it takes a little explanation. There’ll be more of those.
August 11, 2017. Samsung S8+ cell phone, 4.25mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/1.7, 1/50, ISO 64.
For a few years at the end of Normal Times and the beginning of the pandemic, I lived in a first-floor apartment with a back deck facing an alley that was patrolled by hawks that loved the variety of squirrels and pigeons nearby. I was on the deck on a warm but blustery day and, when this bird landed on the nearby utility pole with its dinner, I went in and grabbed my camera.
I got some shots of it noshing away, some of which were really nice, but afterward, I guess, it was either still hungry or just needed to strut around in what it thought was a very macho pose. Me, as a fan of the Marx Brothers since my teen years, I felt it looked like that infamous leaning, leering Groucho walk, bent far forward with his hands clasped behind his back, ready to deflate some pompous fool.
September 14, 2021. Cropped from a larger image. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm lens at 400mm (35mm equivalent: 600mm), f/7.1, 1/100, ISO 560.
This pudgy squirrel makes me happy, not just because it has its eyes half-shut as it savors that dead bit of foliage, not just because it’s quite ready for a long winter with all that extra padding, but especially because it’s found a way to plunk down its butt and haunches against part of the trunk while munching away. As the winter was beginning (here in Chicago, it can begin weeks before this photo was taken), this critter had just found its happy place, literally and figuratively, with its comfort food, its padding, and its well-rested butt.
December 7, 2019. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), Nikon 100–400mm lens at 360mm (35mm equivalent: 540mm), f/6.3, 1/250, ISO 800.
Here’s a scene from the nature preserve that plays with depth of field (the amount of blur in a photo) to bring some color into a photo that’s almost abstract. The lily pads are floating on the pond as it reflects the tall grasses from the other side, and the scene is shot through the nearby grasses as they fade from summer’s green to fall’s brown. This photo is on my wall.
October 30, 2010. Nikon D90 (DX sensor), 105mm Nikon macro lens (35mm equivalent: 155mm), f/4, 1/1,600, ISO 640.
At some point, I’ll have a post about why I love not just aerial photography but just flight, sitting in a window seat, staring at everything I can. There’s a psychological thing there and I recently learned it has a name.
In the meantime. In February 2018 I went to Austin to see some bands and some friends, and both flights were pretty awful trudges. But on the return trip, I had scored a super cheap upgrade to first class. We were late to board the plane, and I sat down in the first seat I saw, 3A. I was actually supposed to be sitting in a window seat on the other side, but whoever had seat 3A must have just shrugged.
As we flew over the lakeshore toward the lake, I got some really nice pictures of the South Loop and Museum Campus area. A couple of those will turn up here eventually. But, as we started to turn, those of us on the left realized what was going on across the entire field of view.
In this photo, the lakeshore runs from the Far South Side to the Far North Side. I’ve tried to figure out those streets on the north, converging into the distance; I think they’re Irving Park Road, Montrose Ave., Lawrence Ave., and Foster Ave.
But it isn’t hard to see why I love this photo; it’s just that knowing how this chance came after two long flights, each delayed by weather, returning into bitter cold, but there was the sunset lighting up both the clouds and the frozen lake. It will take a while, but there are other photos from this flight and approach that will turn up here.
February 11, 2018. Samsung S8+ cell phone, 4.25mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/1.7, 1/160, ISO 125.
Photos about live music aren’t just about live music. In April 2017 I was in Austin for a birthday trip, seeing many of my favorite bands and musicians. This night at C-Boy’s, the band was getting ready to take the stage. Most of the musicians were hovering nearby, waiting for show time. I took a few snapshots but, when the band’s front man noticed and looked at me — that was when I took a photograph.
There are a lot of little things that pull this photo together, I think. The leading line of the ventilator on the ceiling pulling our eye to the band. The red light to the ventilator’s left balanced by the light over the piano on the right. Similarly, the blown-out highlight of the daylight coming from the door and the shadow that bisects the glare. The contrast of the yellow tie on the black shirt. The disco ball reflecting nearby lights to look like a cross. And of course, that bright amber sparkly, spangly curtain. Finally, those barstools don’t even really get noticed, but at the edge of our eye, we can see they’re different. It’s a few lucky accidents that fell into place to make this cell phone photo overachieve.
April 9, 2017. Motorola Moto X Pure Edition cell phone, 3.8mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 28mm), f/2, 1/15, ISO 800.
It was the first hot day of the year, right in mid-April. I was at my favorite nature preserve, and a great blue heron was preening — I imagine discarding old feathers not only for new growth but also appreciating the extra ventilation — and sticking close to the pond’s edge. Here and there, he’d splash around a bit. Those got me some fun photos, but the keeper was when he happened to emerge from the water perfectly aligned with my view, drops of water flying every which way. During one of his quieter moments, I’d set my exposure settings to a faster shutter speed, and that is why this one, the moment after he breaks the surface to cool off on such a warm day, is a photo I love.
April 15, 2023. Cropped from a larger image. Nikon D850 (FX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm at 400 mm, f/8, 1/750, ISO 800.
