We’re back on the tour of the industrial Calumet River, returning slowly to the harbor as we pass many more sites to record. With every glance, another one was approaching, so I grabbed this photo and moved on to the next. It was popular enough on social media, as Chicago’s home to many unions and union members. But as I thought about it while reviewing the pictures, it felt a little unusual. It leaves out women union members, and I have known women union members for many decades. The two characters peeking out from the yellow ladder didn’t make any sense: 0? G-Men? I couldn’t find any other photos of the scene, so I shrugged and let it be. A couple of years later, Forgotten Chicago repeated the tour, so I bought a ticket and was ready to get the entire scene as we passed — we’ll see that tomorrow and solve this.

August 29, 2010. Nikon D90 (DX sensor), 70–300mm Nikon zoom lens at 125mm (35mm equivalent: 187mm), f/8, 1/1,250, ISO 640.

My friend and I were walking around the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis one Summer day; she saw this pattern of fences and shadows and remarked on it. She didn’t even say in particular that I should take a picture of it, but I thought I should, so I did, and it was a keeper, one of the best of the trip, which was a very good trip.

August 31, 2025. Nikon Coolpix P1000 (1/2.3-inch sensor), focal length 36mm (35mm equivalent: 200mm), f/8, 1/2,500, ISO 800.

We’re back at the nature preserve, three weeks into Fall 2008, with the first notes of the season’s color edging into the scene. As I was walking past the pond, I saw how perfectly the clouds were reflecting on its wonderfully still surface. It’s a shame the real clouds are overexposed, but that helps draw our attention to the surface, and that’s probably a good thing for this photo.

October 15, 2008. Canon PowerShot SD850 IS, focal length 5.8 (35mm equivalent: 35mm), f/8, 1/100, ISO 80.

Back in another time, I was a tournament pinball player. After being away from pinball for some decades, I’ve returned to it, like to play machines, have made some friends in the pinball community. Tournaments are highly organized and regimented via national and international organizations, and I have no interest in paying them money to find out that I’m maybe the 52,827th best player in the country or whatever. So I just play when I see a table and have some time and a few quarters.

This machine is No Fear: Dangerous Sports, a 1995 Bally Williams table. If you like classic machines, you’ll think of 1995 as modern machines, and if you like modern tables, 1995 would be a classic. Anyway, a bar not that far from me has a couple of pinball tables from that era; I like older machines, so I don’t play either of them that much, but they look really nice, and when you turn your photos into black and white shots, the lighting really makes the table look very lively.

August 15, 2025. OnePlus 12 cell phone, 2.62mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 14mm), f/2.2, 1/30, ISO 250.

A flight that takes off from Chicago in the late afternoon, flies over the Northeast during dusk, and then reaches the Boston area at nightfall is highly recommended if you are the sort of person who gets a window seat and takes hundreds of pictures. That’s the junction of Interstates 93 and 95 to Boston’s west there, with all the shopping you could hope for on one side and all the sleepy suburban life you could run from on the other side. I grew up not far from this area — if I had been in seat 3F rather than seat 3A, I suspect I would have seen the town I grew up in — and seeing the area like this made me really happy.

September 18, 2025. OnePlus 12 cell phone, 6.06mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 47mm), f/1.6, 1/20, ISO 1,250.

I mean, how cute can nature get? This was the third of three photos I took of these chipmunks on a railing, and the first two were OK, but mom was not yet stepping on the little one in her rush to get away from the big guy with the camera. But finally, she did do exactly that, and the guy with the camera snapped the shutter one last time.

May 30, 2020. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm lens at 400mm (35mm equivalent: 600mm), f/6.3, 1/2,000, ISO 800.

A while back, I published a photo of Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis, at full power after a number of storms, with a quick shutter speed to show just how much water was pouring over that bluff.

This is a fountain near Chicago’s lakeshore, and it’s a good one (I like it a lot), but it’s never going to be powerful. Its spray turned out to look really nice with the kind of long shutter speed that defines these classic water shots, though. There’s just enough transparency to offer a sense of what’s going on behind it.

October 30, 2010. Nikon D90 (DX sensor), Nikon DX 18–105mm lens at 66mm (35mm equivalent: 99mm), f/32, 1/13, ISO 640.

I’ve published a few photos here from the various Forgotten Chicago boat trips down industrial river areas, including a few shots of the lift bridges that connect the sides of the river when they’re lowered but are kept raised most of the time so boats large and small can travel unimpeded. I marveled at how complicated the construction of those bridges was, and how it felt like it took both so much and so little to keep them working. From a distance, these girders form a nice, neat structure, but up close, they look like they’re heading every which way in an effort to support the bridge.

August 29, 2010. Nikon D90 (DX sensor), 70–300mm Nikon zoom lens at 70mm (35mm equivalent: 105mm), f/10, 1/200, ISO 640.

It almost sounds like the name of some third-rate animation studio character. This yellow-rumped warbler, which is in a position to prove that once again ornithologists were naming birds with colors that just weren’t where they claimed, senses there’s reason to be cautious as it scans the nearby sky.

April 18, 2020. Cropped from a larger image. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm lens at 400mm (35mm equivalent: 600mm), f/6.7, 1/1,500, ISO 400.

A kestrel couple had spent some time sitting on adjacent branches sunning on a chilly March day. I snapped a few pictures — they weren’t doing much but are always beautiful birds to capture — and, a short time later, the female that had been on the right branch there flew off. Her mate didn’t follow, but a moment later. the male took a nice big stretch on his branch. It was a cute look at a bird just being himself in the moment.

March 20, 2021. Cropped from a larger image. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm lens at 400mm (35mm equivalent: 600mm), f/9.5, 1/350, ISO 560.

This summer I visited the Boston area for a celebration of life, but stretched my visit out for a week to enjoy a city I love. I had a fantastic time every day and every night. The town in which I rented a room celebrated its Town Day on Saturday, mostly lots of sidewalk sales. But it ended with a really nice fireworks display in the early evening. I got there early, and while the picnic tables and benches were all already occupied, there were lots of big boulders along the lake front. I chose one to sit on, and a little while later, the area in front of me filled in with a group of young kids. Silhouetted nicely in the western light, excitement and expectations high for the show, they were having a great time, and that’s why I love this photo.

September 20, 2025. OnePlus 12 cell phone, 6.06mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 23mm), f/1.35, 1/100, ISO 1,250.

How can “girls” resist? This ad had been in that spot on that building since the 1950s, according to news reports when it was taken down in the Summer of 2018; it survived the company that put it there by about a decade. (Which, if that report is accurate, means that someone would answer that phone number as late as 2008!) It was one of those quirky remnants of Old Chicago that was always fun to see as you roamed the city. Those reports say a neighborhood association has the sign in storage.

February 22, 2015. Google Nexus 5 cell phone, 3.97mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/2.4, 1/2,200, ISO 130.

Here’s another closeup macro shot that takes just the thinnest edge of focus to give us a gorgeous painterly feel. The photographs I take at the beginning of each season often give me many of my favorites, and this is in that category, as much as I’d love this regardless of when I took it.

May 29, 2017. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), 105mm Nikon macro lens (35mm equivalent: 155mm), f/4.2, 1/4,000, ISO 100.

Here’s another photo that would have stopped me in my tracks if I’d been making any, but I saw it while I was sitting relatively comfortably in my easy chair; all I had to do was grab my cell phone and take a bunch of photos from different angles. It was a hot, humid day, and it didn’t take long for my glass of ice water to bead up with condensation. This full-color photo plays with light and form really nicely; all of those droplets are on the outside of the glass and face out, but few of them look that way — most of them look like they’re facing into the glass, a neat optical illusion. I have a few favorites from that moment, but this one’s the star of the show, and a reminder: Don’t miss what’s right in front of you.

July 30, 2025. OnePlus 12 cell phone, 2.6mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 23mm), f/2.6, 1/333, ISO 64.

I’m sure this ride is a thrill every heartbeat, but it really looked underwhelming every time I glanced at it, and this was a perfect moment to illustrate why.

August 26, 2025. Nikon Coolpix P1000 (1/2.3-inch sensor), focal length 19mm (35mm equivalent: 105mm), f/8, 1/2,500, ISO 800.