Had the chance to shoot some Artists In Jackson photos at the River Raisin Distillery in Manchester, Michigan, this weekend.
It was a great venue with amazing light. Lots more to come.
Shot on the Canon EOS M6 and Viltrox EF-M 23mm f/1.4.
This year, I’ve laid out a challenge for myself:
Get weird.
My photography style revolves around documentary photos. I tend to capture things as they are: people, objects, scenes, abandoned buildings.
Sure, I’ll play with the light, shadows, and color grading. But the camera captures the scene, framed by me, and that’s it. I mostly pay attention to light, shadow, shapes, contrast, and color.
What I have a hard time with is experimenting. Playing. Doing anything other than capturing scenes as I see them (with a few exceptions that I think turned out well).
While we spent time in Chicago on spring break, I took the opportunity to use rainy days, windows, and reflections to play with the scenes around the city.
Even if nothing comes of it, it’s important to try something new and see where it goes.
Maybe nowhere. Maybe it’s a side quest.
“Why not?” is a great place to start.
I often struggle with street photography. For one, I don’t live near a major metropolitan area, so I don’t get a lot of practice.
And for two, when I do street photography, I feel like I capture people from too far away. Rarely, I’ll get the right conditions and have a great session or day out in the city.
During our most recent trip to Chicago, I gave myself a challenge: get closer. Capture people, not necessarily scenes with people.
With the Canon EOS M2 and 22mm f/2, that means I have to get close – sometimes uncomfortably close. But that’s part of the challenge.
And you grow with a little bit of discomfort, right?
Walking around town with my family, I tried to stay incognito with my little mirrorless camera. I set the lens to f/8 and try to react quickly to grab a person on the street.
Sometimes it worked great. Other times, I would misfire or miss focus. But over the long weekend, I grabbed enough close shots of people that I started to get comfortable with this new way of shooting.
Here’s what I noticed: people stare at their phones. It’s such a modern thing, but it’s true – you rarely catch someone just looking, walking, sitting, or engaging in conversation without a glowing screen in front of them.
I really noticed that when I got back and looked at the photos. Phones everywhere.
All in all, the challenge was successful.
Even with the limitations of a 35mm field of view and a slow-focusing M2, there were enough opportunities to grab people (and pets!) face-on, and enough anonymity in a big city like Chicago, to get some decent street photography.
Back to Chicago – this time with the kids on Spring Break.
I brought along the Canon EOS M2 and EF-M 22mm f/2. One lens, one perspective, one view of the Windy City.
Or lots of views: through windows, outside and inside, on the train, people walking through the streets.
Street photography wasn’t the point of this trip. It rarely is, but taking along a camera to catch the sights – well, you grab things as you see them.
And as always, I saw a lot. So you can expect a few days of Chicago photos here on the blog.
Today? It’s all black and white using Mastin Labs’ Tri-X 400 emulation in Lightroom, my favorite as of late. Nice grain, just the right amount of contrast.
That’s my kind of monochrome. For my kind of town.
Sweet home (away from home) Chicago.
Beautiful sunset on an almost-spring evening. It was that kind of atmosphere that turns everything a different color.
Even the kids had to take out their phones and capture the magic:
Captured on the Canon EOS M6 and EF-M Viltrox 23mm f/1.4.
Want to know a secret?
I’m a wrestling fan. Have been since I was a kid.
So when an old friend, who came out of a four-year retirement to wrestle, gave me a heads-up on some indy wrasslin’ for a good cause? Count me in.
I took my daughter, who joins me for my annual Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania watches, to watch a series of surprisingly good matches. The Headlock On Hunger event even included a 20-man battle royale.
This could easily become a longer-term project for me.
The sweaty gym setting. The vocal crowd. The hard hits and potential bumps – it was all there. And it was a blast to capture.
Shot on the Canon 5D mark II and EF 100mm f/2.8, and EOS M6 with the Viltrox 23mm f/1.4.
For Valentine’s Day, we were gifted a charcuterie-making class at Sandhill Crane Vineyards.
So: date night! We learned how to carve radishes, arrange cheeses, and cut pepper blossoms, all while enjoying live music and plenty of wine.
To stay unobtrusive, I brought along my Canon EOS M6 and the Viltrox 23mm f/1.4 – a great combo for these kinds of low-light situations.
February was rough for me. Emotionally, work-wise – everything felt like it was crashing down.
My family noticed how irritable I was. I felt it, too: waking up every day tired, wanting to go to bed early every night.
I was in a funk. So I got out of the house.
It’s amazing what a little sunshine and fresh winter air will do for the spirit.
And not to oversimplify it, but getting in my car, driving around town, and making photos was exactly what I needed.
I had my mental photo checklist handy – little spots around town that, given the right light, I wanted to visit and photograph. So I grabbed my trusty Canon 5D (classic!) and 40mm lens, along with a new pickup – the EF 200mm f/2.8 – and hit the town.
This evening was perfect, with the sun setting and the snow turning blue. I stopped at everything from mall parking lots to rooftop parking garages, and lots of places in between.
“Make your own little adventure,” I kept telling myself. Grab the dog, throw the camera gear in the car, and hit the road. Just because.
It does a soul good.
We had the weekend in Chicago – just the two of us, two whole days to make some good trouble.
My wife, Jaime, is starting to put herself out there as a business owner. She’s a music therapist, so many of her professional portraits feature a guitar of some sort.
With her new enterprise, she wanted some professional images without an instrument.
So we wandered around Chicago’s loop, walked inside some boutique hotel lobbies, and made some headshots before we got kicked out.
And it was fun. We felt like two teenagers who, at any moment, were going to get caught somewhere they shouldn’t have been.
There was one high-end luxury hotel in particular where I felt the lobby desk’s eyes were on us. But in each location, nothing happened. We got off scot-free.
The photos? They were just what Jaime was looking for – wardobe changes and all.
If there’s a lesson here, it’s that you should use your photography superpowers to help people, especially people you know and love.
Take them up on their creative idea. You might have a great time doing it.
All images shot on the Canon EOS M6 and a few EF-M lenses.
It wasn’t our first time in Chicago during the winter.
This time, we were in town for the weekend to see Brandi Carlile and, the next day, wander into downtown Chicago for some new headshots for my wife (more on those later).
Wandering the streets around The Loop, I couldn’t help but grab some pictures.
All images shot on the Canon EOS M6 and a few EF-M lenses.
This Christmas, we were sitting with some family and going through some of my annual photo books.
“I tend to take my camera everywhere,” I told my mother-in-law as she relived the past few years through pictures. Some of those photo albums featured her, either at birthday parties or on a family trip to Wisconsin.
Looking through those photo books, all those ordinary moments feel anything but ordinary when you see them again.
As we turned the pages, I realized how much of what I remember is tied to the light of a place.
Light ends up highlighting how a scene, location, or event felt. Not just how it looked, but how I remember it: the warmth on a Lake Michigan beach. The quiet of a winter afternoon. The way a place said “home.”
In the winter, I always watch for the familiar light to return to the south side of the house. When it’s cold out, the light makes its merry way across the walls and floors again. When it shows up, I try to notice and capture it.
Looking back at old photos, I realize how much I miss the big picture window in our previous home’s living room (above). We made so many memories there. Morning light spilling in. Late afternoon shadows. Kids on the floor or the couch.
Quiet moments that felt small then, but feel enormous now.
Over the years, I knew that old house’s light and followed it according to the seasons.
In this house, the light is different. It arrives at different times, from different angles, and I’ve learned to take advantage of it where and when I can.
That’s part of why it helps to take a camera everywhere, or keep one on me at all times. I try to notice the light when it shows up and grab it while it’s there.
Then, when we look back, we’re not just seeing a photo; we are reliving how that light made the moment feel.
