I’ve talked a couple of times (more will come, let’s face it) about the joys of timing a flight to arrive somewhere at the right time to get pretty pictures. But (let’s face it again) sometimes the right move is to end up where you’re going in time for the skyline to catch some color. I am old enough to remember when no Austinite could ever think there’d be this many glass towers in the city. There are still a lot of natives (and frequent visitors) who miss those old days. But I have to admit, sometimes there’s a postcard waiting for you and I’m not going to be the nostalgic snob who whines, “Those buildings shouldn’t even be there.”

January 30, 2025. OnePlus 12 cell phone, 13.3mm focal length with digital zoom (35mm equivalent: 140mm), f/2.6, 1/40, ISO 250.

Actually, they’re buttonbushes, and they’re a lot of fun to photograph for a few reasons. As flowers go, they’re an unusual and interesting shape, and they grow in groups, so you can play with composition as I did here. They’re marvelous subjects for macro photography, as will come up here at some point, and pollinators love them. Buttonbushes do not exist for long in Chicago; we see them for a very brief time. But in that short time, they attract butterflies, bees, and hornets, all of which are much too busy gathering all that pollen to bother with the photographer.

July 14, 2013. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), Nikon 70–300mm lens at 300mm (35mm equivalent: 450mm), f/16, 1/250, ISO 400.

It is also safe to say that most Chicagoans, in the heat of mid-August, are ready to climb out onto a log, stare off into space, and wonder what the point of it all is.

August 25, 2012. Nikon D90 (DX sensor), 70–300mm Nikon zoom lens at 195mm (105mm equivalent: 290mm), f/16, 1/125, ISO 500.

It is safe to say that most Chicagoans, sometime around mid-March, are ready to climb out onto a branch, stare off into space, and wonder what the point of it all is.

March 17, 2019. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm lens at 165mm (35mm equivalent: 250mm), f/5.6, 1/250, ISO .280

One of the attributes of humanity is that we are the only creature aware that we live life in two dimensions. We can observe and think about all the creatures that swim, all the creatures that fly, and know that they not only live life in three dimensions but have senses we don’t have so they can cope with that.

Dragonflies, I’ve mentioned before, are territorial, and occasionally hover in place to stake out a… hmm, a piece of air, I guess. Well, a volume of space: They want other dragonflies to know what area they’re protecting. If you get to know a dragonfly or two, you can start to predict where in three-dimensional space they will routinely stop, and, with that in mind, you can set up your exposure settings to get, with plenty of patience, a pretty good shot of a dragonfly nearly frozen in that spot when they return. A shutter speed of 1/1,500th of a second still wasn’t quite fast enough to freeze those wings. And there’s no need to think about how many failed shots I had to take to get this keeper. I will take the victory lap on this shot.

July 23, 2016. Cropped from a larger image. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), Nikon 70–300mm lens at 300mm (35mm equivalent: 450mm), f/8, 1/1,500, ISO 1,600.

We’re back in the 2009-era Meatpacking District and, for all the questionable detail around the fire escape and the building it’s arguably attached to, what caught my eye was that porthole. For instance: Why? What? What happens if you dive in? Or… does anything or anyone ever come out? If there’s a fire, would it be faster (or safer!) to get out through that porthole?

As with many of the pictures of that area from that walk, interesting things turned up that just ended up being unanswerable, and they’re long gone.

September 5, 2009. Nikon D90 (DX sensor), Nikon DX 18–105mm lens at 40 mm (35mm equivalent: 60 mm), f/13, 1/124, ISO 1,250.

Mostly when I’m photographing insects, the rule is to try to make sure the eyes are nice and sharp and there’s enough going on in the rest of the photo to be interesting. So if a monarch butterfly slurping up some nectar, sure, that’s really about all you need and about all you’re going to get. But look at those beautiful wings. The texture and the folds really show up nicely here. This was a significantly larger image and a pretty standard one of yet another monarch butterfly getting some chow. But when I zoomed in on my laptop screen, all this detail came to life, and I knew it had to have its day here. It’s easy to capture this kind of detail on dragonflies, as we’ve seen already. Monarchs, butterflies in general, you need just the right light at just the right angle, and you have to look past the full picture to realize cropping is the best thing you can do. That’s why I love this photo.

July 29, 2023. Cropped from a larger image. Nikon D850 (FX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm at 400mm, f/6.3, 1/2,000, ISO 400.

“Hi, I’m Troy McClure, and no, that isn’t a typo in the title! That duck on the right has her left eye open and is watching her mate! We’ll never know if he’s peeking back, but wouldn’t that be cute?”

The sun isn’t making a cold day much warmer in mid-November, and if you’re a critter out in the wild — even in the “wild” and yes, those are finger quotes here in Chicago — on a day like that, if you aren’t eating or taking care of the kids, you may as well hunker down and stay warm as best you can. Ducks are among the many birds that bond for life and this is a cute moment for these two. They may or may not agree, of course.

November 13, 2022. Nikon D850 (FX sensor), Tamron 100–400mm at 400mm, f/8, 1/45, ISO 200.

I’ve got a bunch of friends who live in Austin or come in from other parts of the state, and occasionally from other states, and it’s a gathering of friends who don’t get together often enough and never know if we’ll get together again. Good music, good food and drink, good time, basic formula. Often we do a little bar-hopping after, and here’s a lovely second-floor bar on South Congress Avenue. If you know, you know. If you’re headed to Austin, ask and I’ll tell you. What bar it is isn’t the reason I love this photo. It’s because friends, light, color, neon, happiness.

January 20, 2019. Samsung S8+ cell phone, 4.25mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/1.7, 1/25, ISO 200.

I’ve never been much of a dog person — my cat was the best pet on Earth ever — but my best friend adopted Jules not long before we met. Jules was a sweet and funny little superstar, who only barked at dogs bigger than her. She was more devoted to her caretaker than any pet I’ve ever seen, my cat included.

She had the googliest eyes possible. In this photo, she is as focused on the camera as the camera is on her. I often shared my photos of Jules with my friend, of course.

She lost Jules to old age in May of ’21. Considering how much I still miss Jules, I can only imagine how my friend feels.

My friend has come to know many interesting people on BlueSky, including a caricature artist who does amazing work. And she asked me for a copy of this photo, because she had contracted with him to do a caricature of Jules, and wanted to use this photo as a model.

I loved this photo before she asked that, but I love it so much more now. I obviously don’t have the right to reproduce the caricature, but he did a wonderful job capturing so much personality. I’m happy and proud that this picture lives on in that form.

October 14, 2018. Samsung S8+ cell phone, 4.25mm focal length (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/1.7, 1/5, ISO 1,250.

I started going to this particular nature park in ’98, and 27 years later, I still enjoy the thrill of seeing something I’ve never seen before. One of the best examples of that was a hot, steamy Saturday afternoon in 2016, when the pond was full of croaking bullfrogs — I could hear more of them than I could see. But two of them actually seemed to be having a conversation. The timing and the volume both contributed to that. I already knew that croaking bullfrogs are establishing territory. If that meant any of the lady frogs in that area were included, well, what a coincidence, hm? So I’ve been told.

Anyway. The two bullfrogs were speaking to each other, and I am saying here that tension was definitely building between the two in a way even a clueless non-frog human guy like me could pick up on. Finally, Bullfrog 1 decided that Bullfrog 2 was quite full of crap, and started swimming over to where Bullfrog 2 was.

It was quite a distance. I took a number of pictures of Bullfrog 1 getting closer and closer to Bullfrog 2. Bullfrog 1 actually swam past Bullfrog 2, in that “I am totally not going to fight you; I’m just heading to the store for a pack of smokes” way. But then he stopped! He turned! He faced Bullfrog 2 and paused! They were facing each other! Tension! I think I was the only one in the world at that moment who excitedly thought, “I am in the right place at the right time to see two bullfrogs fight!” as I snapped away.

And then Bullfrog 1 swam over to Bullfrog 2! And when they got close, they leaped at each other! Just like in this photo! Bullfrog 1 jumped a little too soon, and Bullfrog 2 got under him and had the strength to knock him over! I got the picture! I got more pictures! There was splashing and the brawl lasted for a few moments, not that bullfrogs are known to perceive time!

And then it was over. Bullfrog 1 — the closer of the two in this photo — lost. I don’t know how these are decided, and think it may actually have been on an If You Know, You Know scoring system.

And Bullfrog 1 began the very, very long Swim of Shame back to where he had been hanging out originally. Even to me, it seemed like it took a much longer time to get back than it took for him to get to Bullfrog 2. The pond had quieted down. Everyone in Bullfrog City knew. Bullfrog 1’s world was already a little smaller, and every other bullfrog on the block was thinking that maybe they could get a little more space for themselves, too.

And that is why I love this photo.

June 18, 2016. Cropped from a larger image. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), Nikon 70–300mm lens at 220mm (35mm equivalent: 330mm), f/16, 1/250, ISO 1,600.

I’m walking to my bus stop on my morning commute, and I’m a little less than a block away when this woman leaves her house through her front door, locking it. We glance at each other, as people do, but then ignore each other, and she ends up maybe 10 or 15 yards in front of me — not as close as this zoom suggests, but close enough that I could zoom in this well. The whole time, from when she first stepped out the door, she was carrying this very empty banana peel.

I don’t know! And I wasn’t going to ask! How does that go? “Excuse me, that banana peel seems to be stuck to your fingers”? “Hi, neighbor, are you setting a slapstick comedy trap for me? And should I be watching my step?” “I was around in the ’60s, and it’s a myth that smoking that gets you high”?

At that intersection, she went one way and I went the other, and she is immortal in my photo collection.

March 30, 2016. Google Nexus 6P cell phone, focal length 4.67 (35mm equivalent: 26mm), f/2, 1/215, ISO 60.

I admit that’s an odd title today, unless you know, as I did not until a few minutes ago, what this is. Here’s a lovely macro lens closeup of chicory, which has a history of being used as a coffee substitute. I have not tasted it in this form (and like coffee just the way it is, thanks) but I’m really happy with those curlicue stamens being in such great focus while the rest of the flower is still recognizable but pretty much saying, “Check out my curlicues.”

July 25, 2010. Nikon D90 (DX sensor), 105mm Nikon macro lens (35mm equivalent: 155mm), f/18, 1/125, ISO 640.

We’ve seen it in movies, we’ve seen it in sitcoms, we’ve seen it in cartoons. Maybe it’s some poor sop laying concrete or laying bricks and — this is the part that happens in cartoons a lot — someone runs through it or falls into it. A scene or two later, the fall guy is just finishing smoothing it all out, and sure enough, the same thing happens.

I love this because I like to think that happened in real life. Something really plowed into that brick wall, got into its business big time, and then, maybe when the mason was fixing it or maybe sometime later, the same thing happened in the same place. In cartoons, the fall guy usually cries. But I bet this one just said “This is gonna have to do,” put those last bricks in (using what looks like cake frosting), and called it a day.

September 5, 2009. Nikon D90 (DX sensor), Nikon DX 18–105mm lens at 66mm (35mm equivalent: 100mm), f/13, 1/160, ISO 1,250.

As best I can tell, this is a juvenile yellow-crested night heron, because when I search through pictures of herons that are not great blues, that’s the one this mostly matches. But… that glare, y’know? Here’s a dinosaur descendant that does not give a, uh, damn. It just stood there and looked around — uh, glared around — for about 45 minutes while I just kept snapping from a few yards away. Do not address this bird as “Hey, kid.”

I have never seen an adult yellow-crested night heron, maybe because by the time they’re adults, they’re night creatures. (It doesn’t seem right to call them “night owls.”) If you happen to search the internet for images of them, they look nothing like this, and are pretty cool.

October 8, 2017. Nikon D7100 (DX sensor), Nikon 70–300mm lens at 300mm (35mm equivalent: 450mm), f/11, 1/180, ISO 560.