Cabbage white butterflies aren’t really all that pretty, but find wings with some character, catch some texture in the light with a few exposure adjustments, and put them on the right flower, and they show off pretty nicely.
August 24, 2014. Cropped from a larger image. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), Nikon 70–300mm lens at 300mm (35mm equivalent: 450mm), f/16, 1/1,000, ISO 500.
Here’s a macro shot from my 35mm film camera, this time of a black-eyed Susan, showing that cone in the middle that’s made up of a whole lot of cones. My composition was just setting the aperture to blur the depth of field; those nice swirls in the center are all nature.
August 11, 2024. Nikon F5, Fujifilm Color 200, 105mm Nikon macro lens, ISO 200.
On a sunny day with the light at the right angle and the lens catching the right depth of field, these look pretty good from below. I’ve tried to take interesting pictures of Queen Anne’s lace plants from above, and there isn’t much to work with there. It’s different angles, or times of year, when they look their best.
August 1, 2015. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), Nikon 70–300mm lens at 195mm (35mm equivalent: 290mm), f/8, 1/1,500, ISO 200.
The light caught that window on this well-supported facade of the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis at just the right moment for me. And with that, there’s still a lot going on here to catch the eye: the texture of the brick, the girders, the platforms, the glass, those rusty tanks on the left side.
This was the cover of my 2024 calendar.
July 14, 2023. Samsung S20+ cell phone, 2.2mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 13mm), f/2.2, 1/750, ISO 50.
I utterly trust every drop of water that comes out of this building. Yeah.
The amount of rust that I saw on those boat trips into industrial areas sponsored by the Forgotten Chicago team was just amazing. I know, I know, these sites are on rivers. But this look just doesn’t inspire confidence in the idea of having treated the water.
July 15, 2012. Nikon D90 (DX sensor), 70–300mm Nikon zoom lens at 70mm (35mm equivalent: 105mm), f/16, 1/180, ISO 200.
When I was choosing a flight back into Chicago earlier this year, I realized I had a chance to enjoy another approach to O’Hare at sunset. We ended up being a little early, but the low sun sure perked the city up some. If you know, you know: Wrigley Field isn’t that hard to find.
January 20, 2025. OnePlus 12 cell phone, 13.3mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 140mm), f/2.6, 1/100, ISO 80.
In 2023, a friend I hadn’t seen in more than 20 years came to visit me in Chicago for nine days. We had a great time in the city; one day, we enjoyed a few hours roaming the Art Institute of Chicago and then stopped by the Palmer House’s beautiful lobby bar for cocktails. Both drinks have nice color and detail against a good background for the setting, and it was a really happy day with a good friend, and that is why I love this photo.
May 1, 2023. Samsung S20+ cell phone, 5.9mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 28mm), f/2, 1/15, ISO 640.
I’ve mentioned here and there that I like texture, and in the harsh light of a weekend morning in September, the bricks, asphalt, metal, and shadow all hung out together pretty nicely.
(I didn’t know that Chicago even had cobblestones, but it’s no surprise that the ones I found were in my beloved old meatpacking district.)
September 5, 2009. Nikon D90 (DX sensor), Nikon DX 18–105mm lens at 58mm (35mm equivalent: 87mm), f/5, 1/4,000, ISO 1,250.
It’s a nice, warm day at the nature park at the end of May, monarch butterflies are all over the place, and this one landed on a plant and spread its wings and I thought, “Hey, that looks like a Tiffany lamp!”
May 31, 2009. Nikon D90 (DX sensor), Nikon DX 18–105mm lens at 105mm (35mm equivalent: 155mm), f/5.6, 1/2,500, ISO 800.
A quiet photo of a dormant lily pad, floating on the pond surface, surrounded by reflections of the year’s new foliage just emerging, as the broken cloudscape brings additional texture to the scene. I was still a very casual photographer when I took this with a point-and-shoot camera, and I think this was one of the photos that told me I was ready for a regular camera, and that is why I love this photo.
May 4, 2008. Canon PowerShot SD850 IS, 5.8mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 35mm), f/2.8, 1/250, ISO 80.
“Oh. You have a nice camera and I have a magnificent profile, including a large hat rack. We are meant for this moment.” But I think I isolated him well enough from the background and got nice detail on his antlers, face and body; I hope this annoying WordPress photo compression algorithm preserves that.
August 10, 2024. Cropped from a larger image. Nikon D850 (FX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm at 400 mm, f/6.3, 1/500, ISO 200.
I stayed in one New Year’s Eve, watching it snow from my living room windows with the cat on my lap and a book in hand. As partiers drifted home and the snowfall ended, I decided to stretch my legs and see how the neighborhood looked. As it turned out, the street I lived on looked pretty nice.
January 1, 2008. Canon PowerShot SD850 IS, exposure information unavailable.
Milkweed plants are among my favorites. They’re great pollinators, they attract milkweed bugs, the pods have this weird nubbed appearance, they burst open and release seeds that are much cooler and more photogenic than dandelion seeds (which I am not putting down in the least). I love the texture here and the composition and the color this shot gave me.
October 21, 2017. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm lens at 300mm (35mm equivalent: 450mm), f/16, 1/1,000, ISO 400.
Each year as we slosh and trudge through Chicago’s midwinter and early spring, one of my favorite sounds is woodpeckers searching for their next meal. Usually they’re happy to hammer away a few times, hop to another spot, and return to hammering. Here, though, this woodpecker seems to be a little more thoughtful about its next move as its brown eye catches a glint of sunlight.
Incidentally, this is called a red-bellied woodpecker, which leads me to believe ornithologists are frickin’ colorblind.
March 17, 2019. Cropped from a larger image. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm lens at 400mm (35mm equivalent: 600mm), f/6.3, 1/250, ISO 280.
Without Ellie, this would be a nice still-life composition with the two wine glasses in the front and the two planters in the back forming a gentle curve. But, interrupted in the middle by a yowling cat in warm afternoon light, it takes on life and action.
I know Ellie well enough to know I had only a moment before she jumped down to get up close with her caretaker, and one of the reasons I love this shot, aside from the composition, the warmth, and the yowl, is that I got my cell phone out fast enough to get a shot this good.
(When Ellie’s mouth is closed, that black spot looks like a fang; just a little piece of it peeks out. She is endlessly cute.)
April 21, 2025. OnePlus 12 cell phone, 6.06mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 47mm), f/1.6, 1/175, ISO 50.