When you’re a Northern flicker (or two) and you find a tree with lots of insects to munch on, but you realize there are three hawks circling above, you try to blend into the branches and go on high alert. These two were fun to watch as they slowly stopped eating and decided to keep an eye on the predators.
September 19, 2020. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm lens at 400mm (35mm equivalent: 600mm), f/6.3, 1/1,500, ISO 200.
If you’re coming into O’Hare and the winds are out of the west, you’ll go out over Lake Michigan so you pick up the advantages of flying into the wind at landing. And the approaches are well-defined and you’ll probably follow the same narrow path. So while the planter on my back porch is not easy to see at this size and with that tree in my back alley, I still see it in the full-sized photo, and I love this photo and yesterday’s photo separately and together.
June 3, 2018. Samsung S8+ cell phone, 4.25mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/1.7, 1/1,400, ISO 50.
You may or may not know which one it is, but I do. Even with that feathery cloud, this is a pretty fine photograph of the neighborhood I was living in at the time from 3,000 feet above, and that’s why I love this photo.
January 20, 2019. Samsung S8+ cell phone, 4.25mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/1.7, 1/625, ISO 50.
I love sunflowers, and here’s a big, bright backlit one bursting with color. There’s just enough depth of field to get us detail on the bee and the leaves in the back. Even without the bee, I’d love this shot, but that brings that extra bit of activity and interest.
July 29, 2023. Nikon D850 (FX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm at 400 mm, f/11, 1/750, ISO 400.
A shot of the river wall directing freight captains for what seems to be a pretty easy decision. One of the things I loved about these industrial river tours is that things that might seem very obvious to me seem to solve ongoing and difficult problems for the people who are out there every day.
July 15, 2012. Nikon D90 (DX sensor), 70–300mm Nikon zoom lens at 70mm (35mm equivalent: 105mm), f/16, 1/125, ISO 200.
… is still a really wonderful place. I like traveling during the holidays. Everyone’s in a good mood. There are fewer tourists and more real people from around the city and area. This was a New Year’s Eve trip with someone I cared for deeply who is still a wonderful friend and, aside from being in the best city on Earth at a really nice time of year, I just have lots of nice memories of this trip and that time.
January 3, 2010. Canon PowerShot SD850 IS, focal length 5.8 (35mm equivalent: 35mm), f/2.8, 1/8, ISO 200.
I mean. I understand the need these creatures feel to escape from New Orleans, where everyone wants to eat them. Taking it to the point of digging a little burrow in a mudhill on Chicago’s Far North Side is committing to the bit.
June 7, 2012. Nikon D90 (DX sensor), 70–300mm Nikon zoom lens at 300mm (35mm equivalent: 450mm), f/19, 1/45, ISO 200.
This is just lovely tone in this nice, smooth pond surface as the sun sets through the clouds and the remnants of reeds and bare trees. This is not edited; it’s what the camera gave me. I was discovering that the macro lens, designed for closeups on bright days, could really handle a lot of different subjects.
November 18, 2012. Nikon D90 (DX sensor), 105mm Nikon macro lens (35mm equivalent: 155mm), f/16, 1/1,500, ISO 500.
A few friends and I are chatting on a hotel balcony in Austin. I look up and here’s this scene. I thought it had potential as I composed it (wishing I had my DSLR), but it came out better than I expected, with a fair amount of detail in the upper part of the hotel and the way the letters in the sign darken as they get farther away.
September 23, 2018. Samsung S8+ cell phone, 4.25mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/1.7, 1/14, ISO 200.
A very close macro shot of a green June beetle digging into a bud. This was one of the first times I used my macro lens to just get into the face of an insect. Another f stop or two would have sharpened the rest of the beetle, but I was already at f/16 so I was risking diffraction already, and its face and mandibles digging into that bud are as sharp as they should be.
July 31, 2016. Cropped from a larger image. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), 105mm Nikon macro lens (35mm equivalent: 155mm), f/16, 1/350, ISO 2,200.
I stepped off the bus on the way home from work to run an errand; the bus travels up Sheridan Road paralleling the North Side’s lake shore, and I can’t really say why that odd observation tower is there or exactly what you’d observe from it, but the moon was in the right place and the sky’s color was really appealing. In fact, that dark band is Earth’s shadow, so there’s an extra bit of astronomical interest there.
October 23, 2018. Samsung S8+ cell phone, 4.25mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/1.7, 1/120, ISO 80.
It’s a nice balloon! Nice enough to take everywhere, obviously. And since it is not at ceiling level, we can assume it is being tightly clutched. That is where I stop thinking about what’s going on here.
April 13, 2019. Samsung S10+ cell phone, 1.8mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 13mm), f/2.2, 1/60, ISO 400.
After yesterday’s exercise in capturing a huge amount of thundering water, here’s a gently composed look deep into a purple iris. This was another exercise in setting a focus and moving my body back and forth to get the right shot, and not only did I manage to capture nice sharp lines inside there, for once there weren’t any insects. It’s the little victories.
June 8, 2013. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), 105mm Nikon macro lens (35mm equivalent: 155mm), f/5.6, 1/1,500, ISO 800.
I’ve mentioned that I visit Minneapolis pretty regularly, and my friend and I have visited Minnehaha Falls a couple of times. This was after some storms had dumped some pretty substantial rainfall in the area, and she knew the falls would be a pretty great site to visit. I love this photo in particular because one of the rules many water photographers are obsessed with is trying to smooth out the flow of water by using a very long exposure, but the whole point is seeing how much water is surging over the falls, and a long exposure would completely destroy that effect. It’s a remarkably crisp photo for a cell phone. There will be no video here and I didn’t take any anyway, but I wish you could hear it, a memory that lingers for me.
July 14, 2024. OnePlus 12 cell phone, 13.3mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 70mm), f/2.6, 1/370, ISO 50.
I thought about cropping this so that the great blue heron was larger, but the biggest reason I love this photo is that it shows the bird in his nest pretty naturally. But if you can find a way to zoom in, you’ll get a great view of his right claw dangling in midstep. (Those toes!) It’s just a large bird strolling around his large nest looking through his large window, one moment in his day.
April 16, 2025. Nikon D850 (FX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm at 400 mm, f/6.3, 1/640, ISO 200.