This one’s about color, composition and sharpness. I wanted that one petal that’s just above the center of the photo to be as sharp as it could be, with the rest of the photo fading off into the depth of field. Prairie dock flowers are a favorite of mine as both subjects and flowers, and the three flowers here work really nicely in that right-to-left composition, with the blue sky underneath. The petals on the middle flower have enough shape to continue the composition, and the leftmost flower is just a blur of color. This is in many ways a modest photo, but I really love how it came out.

September 13, 2020. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), 105mm Nikon macro lens (35mm equivalent: 155mm), f/11, 1/1,500, ISO 400.

A Chicago landmark that tourists adore is popularly called the Bean, actually titled Cloud Gate, a mirrored sculpture by Anish Kapoor, installed in 2006.

But, for all the people who flock to it whenever it’s open, one pigeon claimed it for its own this day.

June 6, 2014. Google Nexus 5 cell phone, 3.97 focal length (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/2.4, 1/2,517, ISO 100.

Here’s another photo from one of the boat tours of the Calumet River industrial area, right near the entrance from Calumet Harbor, and I tell you what, I don’t for a minute trust this railroad. I in fact believe that it may well have been designed by one Wile E. Coyote with parts supplied by the Acme Co.

(In fact, it’s a striking photo, but there is matching track on the other side of the river, and the railroad bridge is well above us, having been designed on a lift so that boats can pass. It stays up there until it’s needed at track level. For all the captures of the site on Google Street View, not one photo shows the track lowered to connect the riverbanks.)

August 29, 2010. Nikon D90 (DX sensor), 70–300mm Nikon zoom lens at 70mm (35mm equivalent: 105mm), f/13, 1/160, ISO 640.

On Chicago’s (so-called) Magnificent Mile, Gothic Revival collides with Modernism.

Seven years later, neither of these buildings look like this, though the Tribune Tower, now ludicrously expensive condos, has changed less.

April 17, 2018. Samsung S8+ cell phone, 4.25mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/1.7, 1/1350, ISO 50.

There was an idea going around years ago that given their weight, their wing size, and some other stuff, bees obviously couldn’t fly. The last line of those articles always seemed to be “But somehow, they do.”

This bee sure seems to confirm that part about the weight. The way she’s drooping under those wings! Even as the camera captures her perfectly sharp, the wings are just a blur, but the way she’s sagging into her landing would make anyone with a little empathy cheer her on.

August 2, 2020. Cropped from a larger image. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm lens at 400mm (35mm equivalent: 600mm), f/11, 1/350, ISO 400.

When I post photos from the North Park Village Nature Preserve, which is where I do almost all of my nature photography, that’s most of the upper half of that larger area near the top of the photo. There are actually two parks in that upper half, because, well, Chicago; the top right corner, where that snowy C is, is Peterson Park. (I don’t think the hawks and deer care, but the two parks have different rules for people.)

Anyway, the lower half of that area is senior housing and city buildings. South of that is Bohemian Cemetery, with LeBagh Woods tucked off from the cemetery’s southeast corner. The North Park Village complex is a half-mile on each side, so the nature preserve’s a quarter-mile from its northern to its southern boundaries. Fun fact: The nature center was, for decades, Chicago’s tuberculosis sanitarium, and you can still find remnants of those days around the park.

January 20, 2019. Samsung S8+ cell phone, 4.25mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/1.7, 1/750, ISO 50.

Multiple pleasures led to this photo. I participated in a promotional session to try out a new Nikon camera, the Z5 II. We met in a building two miles east of my neighborhood; I know Ravenswood pretty well — I lived in that neighborhood for a few years at the turn of the century and am still often around there — and like its industrial vibe. Also, our first photo session once we’d had some introduction to the camera and the facilitator was in a neon museum up the street. I thought I knew Ravenswood pretty well, but … it has a neon museum? There’s a neon studio I’ve taken classes at nearby, but even its owners didn’t mention that there’s a real neon museum with a dozen or so signs mounted on all its walls just a couple of blocks away. Anyway, it was fun to play with a new camera and take glowing pictures of ancient, restored signs.

May 23, 2025. Nikon Z5 II (FX sensor), Nikon Z 24–50mm f/4-6.3 at 50mm, f/9, 1/20, ISO 250.

I don’t use dating sites or apps, but women friends who have tell me that they are full of guys holding fish. So I gather that he’s single, ladies. Swipe as you will.

October 6, 2024. Cropped from a larger image. Nikon D850 (FX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm at 400 mm, f/8, 1/1,000, ISO 560.

This is just a simple study in texture, lines and composition. It isn’t bewildering like its neighbor, the Best Meats Inc. building; it’s just a corrugated loading dock door, a peeling post to protect the building, and a bit of brick, along with the angle of the sunlight. But I really like how they come together.

September 5, 2009. Nikon D90 (DX sensor), 105mm Nikon macro lens (35mm equivalent: 155mm), f/13, 1/1,000, ISO 1,250.

I’ve posted a few red-veined darters before and I’ll post more, but this is the first dragonfly I photographed this year. There are a few things I love here: how its frontmost legs are tucked between the thorax and head, the more vivid red in its wing veins than many dragonflies, and the way its abdomen is translucent in this light and you can see right into the dragonfly. I wonder whether it’s a relative toddler in dragonfly terms; the vein color is more vivid than the rest of its body.

May 16, 2025. Cropped from a larger image. Nikon D850 (FX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm at 400 mm, f/6.3, 1/800, ISO 280.

Some friends and I are downtown after an outdoor concert, walking into the Loop to catch a train home. Jackson Drive is closed to traffic, so we’re walking in the center of the street. The bridge crests over commuter rail tracks and, as we reach the top of the crest, I see this composition right in front of me, waiting for me, and I have to tell my friends, “Oh. Sorry, guys. I have to get this.” All the color of the buildings — Metropolitan Building on the left, Sears Tower in the back right, and the Railway Exchange Building that Motorola is pretending to claim in the right foreground — and the streetlights combine perfectly with that deepening dusk sky and the moon and Venus nestled perfectly over Jackson Drive. (When astronomical objects are very close to each other, it’s called a conjunction.)

July 15, 2018. Samsung S8+ cell phone, 4.25mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/1.7, 1/30, ISO 160.

It’s New Year’s Day and I’m bored. The nature preserve I usually go to is closed, but there’s one that usually isn’t very interesting and it’s open every day. Thankfully, there is exactly one woodpecker flitting around, and I follow the damn thing. When it starts hitting a branch from below in midflight, I’m in my happy place hoping the photos come out, and I sure enough got a good one. I liked how there are little bits of bark flying off to the right.

January 1, 2020. Cropped from a larger image. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm lens at 400mm (35mm equivalent: 600mm), f/6.7, 1/2,000, ISO 560.

It’s Saturday morning. I’m washing dishes after breakfast. My kitchen sink is white enamel. The apartment I’m living in has mostly windows that face east, and with a taller building next to mine, I don’t get much sun. But as I splash water around, my very idle brain sees the drops and the shapes and the shadows and I sigh and go out to the living room to get my cell phone; I take a few different compositions, and this has just enough suggestion of action to become my favorite.

July 29, 2019. Samsung S8+ cell phone, 4.25mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/1.7, 1/90, ISO 50.

… is that they have empty heads and hairy backs. (In fairness, I’ve seen hairier.) It’s very hard to show how little there is between the neck and those two bulging eyes, and this zoomed closeup is close as I’ve come.

July 29, 2023. Cropped from a larger image. Nikon D850 (FX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm at 400 mm, f/6.3, 1/1,000, ISO 400.

… and is available.

This was a photo I had long wanted to take, on the corner of the street I lived on at the time, but there always seemed to be a car obscuring it. That day I had a clear shot of it, I did not waste the opportunity. The building is a small laundromat; those two signs had been there, both with their numbers obscured on the signs themselves, for a very long time.

October 21, 2017. Samsung S8+ cell phone, 4.25mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/1.7, 1/300, ISO 50.