After surgery in the Spring of 2026, I couldn’t fly for a few months, which made an interstate move pretty challenging. But most of my restrictions were cleared by the end of the Summer and I wasted little time booking window seats for trips to visit friends and attend events.

As I returned home one Sunday afternoon a month into Fall, the sky was so amazingly clear all over the Northern Midwest. Here we have Lake of the Isles and a bit of Bde Maka Ska in the center and lower right of the photo respectively, with Minneapolis’s downtown dominating the top area. We were flying into MSP International from the Northwest toward the Southeast and I scored a few dozen great photos of metropolitan Minneapolis on the approach. I love how far we can see — I wish phone camera apps recorded not just standard GPS longitude and latitude but also height above sea level, which they very much know.

October 18, 2026. OnePlus 12 cell phone, 13.3mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 140mm), f/2.6, 1/500, ISO 50.

My neighborhood has turned into a hangout for crows. Whatever they do during the day, that’s their business, but dozens of them return to the area as the sun sets and find their spots to chill for the evening. They’ve got as much personality as you sometimes read about, and there have been times I felt like I got to know which of them liked some others and which ones didn’t like some of the others. Anyway, one evening they decided to roost out in the open on one of the only trees that had lost its foliage, and against the dusk of the Western sky, it made a nice silhouette.

October 21, 2026. OnePlus 12 cell phone, 233mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 933mm), f/2.6, 1/320, ISO 50.

After the Mississippi River slices through the heart of Minneapolis and St. Paul, it runs south between Minnesota and Wisconsin. Both sides have gorgeous bluffs, and one afternoon a couple of friends and I took a day trip to Winona, two hours by Amtrak out of St. Paul Depot, hoping the foliage would be as spectacular as the rest of the views. We were just a bit early for that, but it’s still a stunning sight, and to someone like me who grew up in New England, it’s just nice to see hills again. This stretch of river could be as famous as the Grand Canyon, and we were by no means the only people taking the leaf-peeper day trip, but ultimately it isn’t a bad thing that crowds aren’t elbowing their way through the view.

October 24, 2026. Cropped from a larger image. OnePlus 12 cell phone, 140mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 560mm), f/2.6, 1/360, ISO 50.

A pair of robins recently built a nest on top of a joist on my balcony, although Dad helped with the move and, apparently, a night of celebration, and was never seen again.

But Mom patiently waited in the nest, laid a clutch of eggs, and then waited some more until they hatched. I’m not sure whether there were three or four eggs. If there was a fourth, it didn’t hatch; I think the third hatched but, if so, that chick only lived briefly. The second chick to hatch lived only a couple of days, and the reason is that the first chick to hatch was, well, a berserk bully.

The loud, pushy jerk shoved past his sibling every time Mom flew up to the nest with a berry or bug, and even once #2 was no longer a factor in his life, Junior would still let Mom know when it was mealtime in no uncertain chirps. The temper tantrums grew with Junior’s meager abilities, and on day 5 of Junior’s young life, he threw a tantrum that had even Mom backing off in startled admiration as she edged away while Junior got in her face, screeching and gesturing wildly, with his otherwise useless wings almost knocking her off the edge of the nest. She got the point and zoomed to a nearby garden, bringing back a yummy worm.

Junior left the nest a day later; I woke up to find him on my balcony railing and, while I’m not saying Mom pushed him out, I bet no one would blame her if she did. He adorably hopped around my balcony for a few minutes, then tried to take off, but discovered his stubby little wings weren’t going to get him airborne. But they did help him float down rather than plunge, and he landed on one flat surface after another until he finally reached the ground. Godspeed, Junior.

August 4, 2026. Nikon D850 (FX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm at 400mm, f/6.3, 1/80, ISO 1,600.

I took two semesters of photography classes in my freshman year of college. The teachers (or maybe professors) were interesting and fun and not that much older than us.

If I read the shadows right, this was probably a late-morning shot, a lunch counter that had been closed for who knows how long — it could have been a few weeks or few years — on Beacon Hill near our campus. I really liked the nostalgic feel, though.

I’ve touched this up a bit, But I thought it was a keeper 50 years ago and I think it is now. There is one more photo surviving from this class, which I’ll post here soonish.

October, 1976. Miranda camera, probably a 50mm lens, probably Kodak Tri-X, no other exposure information available.

This was a tough photo to take. Although that’s a wineglass, I’m just drinking water, but I noticed that the surface was refracting the apartment’s bright carpet while the body was refracting the blanket on my friend’s chair. Those angles were so specific that I had to hold my cell phone up to my eye to reproduce the effect.

April 30, 2026. OnePlus 12 cell phone, 6.06mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 35mm), f/1.6, 1/100, ISO 640.

A friend and I are wandering around the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, which is right next to the Mill City Museum. This photo joins the other photos I’ve published from the site and the area, because I loved the way the sign reflected in the polished windowsill.

May 2, 2026. OnePlus 12 cell phone, focal length 6.06mm (35mm equivalent: 35mm), f/1.6, 1/600, ISO 50.

Minneapolis has lots of postcard shots; here’s another one. It’s a beautiful city that I always look forward to spending my time in.

July 12, 2024. Canon PowerShot G7 Mark II (1-inch sensor), focal length 8.8mm (35mm equivalent: 24mm), f/11, 1/250, ISO 125.

I am mystified. Is there some kind of force field around this land? How do they decide what gets snow, what gets ice, and what remains untouched? It’s the kind of sight you see from your plane window and linger on for it bit, before realizing that yes, this sight belongs in your photo collection.

January 20, 2019. Samsung Galaxy S8+ cell phone, focal length 4.25mm (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/1.7, 1/2,000, ISO 50.

Today’s photo, taken six months before yesterday’s from almost the same spot above the lakefront, is zoomed out more to capture more of the lakefront on a clear Spring day. The Shedd Aquarium and Field Museum are in the lower right this time, with the Adler Planetarium in the lower left now; that’s Soldier Field just above the Field, and the McCormick convention complex is past that. A few more blocks beyond the McCormick, that’s my friend Alvin’s apartment.

June 3, 2018. Samsung Galaxy S8+ cell phone, focal length 4.25mm (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/1.7, 1/1,400, ISO 50.

Gosh, hey, hasn’t it been a minute since the last aerial photo? Remember when I published two nearly identical photos, but taken six months apart, from almost exactly the same spot in three-dimensional space over Chicago’s North Side? This and tomorrow’s pictures aren’t that precise, but cover much of the same territory; thanks to Winter, those pesky clouds obscure Soldier Field and part of the lakefront and harbor. But the Shedd Aquarium in the center, and the Field Museum to its right, are nice and clear, along with the former Meigs Field, an airstrip used by hospitals until the then-mayor illegally converted it to a private concert venue and a little park land, in the upper left corner. I really like that stretch of the frozen lake front with the shadow of a nearby residential tower bringing an extra bit of texture.

January 20, 2019. Samsung Galaxy S8+ cell phone, focal length 4.25mm (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/1.7, 1/1,350, ISO 50.

That pond isn’t perfectly placid, but the decision to get lower and closer to the its surface brought out all those Fall colors with a little extra texture and dimension.

October 9, 2011. Nikon D90 (DX sensor), 70–300mm Nikon zoom lens at 70mm (35mm equivalent: 105mm), f/16, 1/200, ISO 800.

I have to admit that, while I like photographing birds and insects and flowers and whatever else passes through the local nature preserve, it gets redundant. A couple of months after moving to a new neighborhood here in Chicago, one in which I’d spent very little time over my 25 years here, I discovered that zebras roam Kedzie Ave., and I knew I’d found my new home.

July 1, 2022. Samsung S24+ cell phone, 5.9mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 28mm), f/2, 1/160, ISO 25.

I had a long and unhappy day at work that resulted in my leaving for home quite late. I realized that, even if I were leaving on time, I wasn’t in the mood to cook, and as late as it was, a little kindness at a nearby bar would do a lot to improve my mood. Spotting this composition and tweaking it over a number of photos helped me forget the day, the very rare burger and cold beer were also comforting, and I left feeling better than when I’d arrived, with a good mood lighting photo.

November 6, 2017. Samsung Galaxy S8+ cell phone, focal length 4.25mm (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/1.7, 1/120, ISO 320.