More photography here.
A trace fossil of a leaf in winter:
Are those lights in the sky UFOs? Mufasa? Reflections of the lamppost light from my camera? We’ll never know:
A brief respite between snowball fights:
One of their favorite chores is cleaning the windows:
The entrance overhang at a nearby library is very edgy:
Finding his place among the pines:
My view while fetching the ball during driveway soccer:
Thanks to a few large coronal mass ejections from the sun, Chicagoland was treated to a brilliant display of aurora borealis tonight, which I attempted to capture through the trees outside our front door:
Don’t think I’ve ever seen it in person before, so that was neat.
Also neat? (Stay with me here…) If you zoom in on the top photo you’ll see the star Vega at dead center, which was way brighter in person. In the 1997 movie Contact, Vega was where the mysterious alien radio signal was coming from. And in the 2000 movie Frequency, the Northern Lights were the catalyst for the mysterious time-traveling radio signal.
Ipso facto, whether it’s aliens or geomagnetism or something else wonderfully mysterious, whatever is going on tonight should serve as the basis of a crossover sequel to both of these great movies.
More photography here.
Caught this ornate fountain sculpture in Middleton, WI, in the perfect morning light:
Specters of autumn at our local park:
Will never get enough of the two year old’s chubby hands:
And the two year old will never get enough of playing fetch with his fur cousin:
Spotted this heart-shaped root on my sister-in-law’s land:
The six year old loves being in the wilds of nature but also loves making orderly piles:
A rare trampoline adventure for the boys:
In what’s becoming an accidental yearly tradition, here’s a selection of creatures big and small I’ve captured.
A tree frog:
A milkweed tiger moth:
An oriental beetle:
A zebra spider:
An ovenbird just chillin’ on our front porch:
A great blue heron:
More photography here.
Life finding a way through a tennis court:
Exploring the ice rink at our local sports complex:
Angles at my parents’ house:
Summiting the little hill at my childhood park:
More angles and shadows at the library:
The six year old just kickin’ a brick wall while we waited for the splash pad to open:
Reaching, always reaching:
More photography here.
We did a gymnastics party for our now 6 year old’s birthday, which his little brother definitely also enjoyed:
2025 America in one star-spangled shot at our local library — gloomy and fractured, with stark contrasts and a cloudy forecast:
Happened to catch this sunsetting light casting shadows from two different windows into our entryway:
Love how Mr. 1 Year Old looks like a gunslinger strolling into a sidewalk showdown with his brother:
Taking in an amphibious view at Shedd Aquarium:
Admiring the Shedd’s dolphins with my own little water lover:
Warming up for soccer class:
More photography here.
In early November we visited some friends on their farm in the far exterior of Chicagoland:
Hat-tip to this payphone that’s just hangin’ in there:
Sunset from a different farm:
A song of ice and fog at our local park:
The view from getting gas at Costco:
The sun shone kindly upon my wife’s gluten-free blueberry muffins:
Shadows and signs:
My wife recently got a little solar-powered prism for our backyard window that starts rotating once it’s charged up with enough sunlight. This has given sunny mornings an extra little burst of magic with little rainbows streaming around the room, one of which I managed to capture as it dashed right next to one of the can lights:
The contrasts proved, uh, illuminating: artificial vs. natural light, smooth vs. textured, circular vs. streaked.
More photography here.
Partly cloudy in the Windy City:
Feeling reflective at our park:
Fishing class with the five year old:
First time downtown with the lads:
Enjoying the hotel room balcony at Timber Ridge Lodge:
Burgundy boy blending in with the fallen leaves:
More photography here.
Scenes from some time in Michigan with extended family…
Gas station architecture:
Boatin’:
Cousins dancing to the sunset (also a perfect album cover for their future band):
Happened to catch the sunset reflected near the five year old:
Early morning dune summit:
In between teaching the five year old how to play and then letting him beat me, I absolutely smoked him in a game I’ve played since elementary school:
Some pre-dinner heckling of the granddads on the grill (notice the thumbs-down in the middle lol):
We’ve encountered more interesting bugs while out and about since doing this last September, so I figured I’d turn this into yet another of my recurring features with its own tag.
Here’s a midge:
And a (much smaller in real life) ground crab spider:
And a yellow woolly bear moth:
And an alder spittlebug:
And a juniper (or jade) stink bug:
And a white plume moth:
And a painted lichen moth:
More photography here.
Shadow play:
The tunnel into Brookfield Zoo:
Garbage Day is appointment viewing:
Barking up the front yard tree:
Puddle hunting:
More photography here.
Lots of red admiral butterflies in our backyard:
A goose family at our local park:
A toad tromping through our backyard:
The Great Cicadapocalypse has begun here in Illinois, and here’s one of many molting cicadas on our maple tree:
Our lilac bush is so vibrant for such a short time:
A marigold in our backyard garden area:
More photography here.
Back before winter melted into an unseasonably warm February, we got to enjoy some idyllic snowfall:
A boy beholding his world:
A foggy commute:
Shadows and hallways:
Laying down in the backyard with the 5 year old let us spot this view of a fading contrail:
More photography here and on my Instagram.
Tiles and toes:
Always the bright spot on rainy walks:
The puddle jumper approaches:
Sunset reflections:
Sunday morning clips and coffee:
The backyard bubbles are back:
Some dramatic lighting at a local library:
Back in early 2011 I produced a photo documentary of the student-directed stage musical production of The Wedding Singer at North Central College, where I’d graduated the year before.
I set up shop on Tumblr and documented the behind-the-scenes process over the 10-week period. It was fun to watch the show come together from the first rehearsal to the final bow, and I ended up with a nice audiovisual project for my portfolio.
But when I saw the news that Tumblr was being left out to pasture, I wanted to find a new home for this project. So I created a fresh WordPress blog, transferred the posts and photos from Tumblr, cleaned them up a bit, and voilà:
nccweddingsinger.wordpress.com
It was fun to relive this journey as I set up its new digital home. I’m really proud of the shots I was able to get and the journalistic storytelling as a whole, which included cast/crew interviews alongside the day-to-day dispatches.
Read it for yourself. I set up the posts chronologically, so you can start at the homepage and go from there.
More photography here and on my Instagram.
When you go into an elevator and look up to see this face of doom:
The skyward view outside my workplace:
Caught this partially melted ice cube on a countertop:
Why save your Halloween costume for a few hours on one day when you can wear it all the time around town and look like a superhero:
View from a bridge at a mini golf outing:
Autumn is upon us:
This summer I managed to snap pics of a few cool and colorful critters spotted around our yard and house. And thanks to my phone’s aforementioned Visual Look Up, I actually know what they are.
Here’s an ailanthus webworm moth:
And a two-striped grasshopper:
And a grapevine beetle:
And some kind of mantis (species unknown):
And a southern sickle bush-cricket or katydid:
