Chicago was not in the path of totality, and it was a cloudy day so I nixed the plan I had to photograph the event. Instead of leaving a little later for work I went on my commute as usual, leaving my tripod and longest lens at home. The following images were shot from the parking lot at work over the course of about ten minutes whenever the sun peaked through the cloud cover. The moon was already on its way away from the sun, but I got something.

I did not have eclipse glasses so I just stuck the camera out of the car window and used its LCD screen. I had an eclipse filter on my lens, but I did not use any long shutter speeds. These images were shot at ISO 3200 even though I did not need that amount of sensitivity. I felt that there would be plenty of people making great, clear, sharp pictures of totality and the different phases of the eclipse so I wanted to differentiate the images I was taking. The result was these grainy, toned, dramatic images.

I wish that I was able to catch this a bit sooner for a thinner crescent shape.

Three tones, three different moods. All of these were shot with a 150mm full-frame equivalent lens.

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Chicago was enveloped in fog for a few days last week. I ventured out to the Museum Campus area by the lake, first not knowing what I would capture. When I saw that visibility over the water wasn't very far I knew I wanted to show that in a minimalist shot like this in a square format.

The thickness of the fog made it difficult to see the museums from afar. I thought I would use some humor with this caption because the Adler Planetarium is supposed to be at the end of this embankment. I originally wanted to make monochrome images because of the gray day. But I decided to stay with color and gave them a bit of tone, blue for the images above and below this one because of the water, and just a hint of green for this image because trees are an element.

The building in the foreground is the John G Shedd Aquarium. Normally in the background would be the great Chicago skyline. It could not be seen on this day until I got to the other side of the aquarium where the fog wasn't as dense as it is here.

Two men enjoying the beautiful Chicago skyline

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Solar Eclipse, August 21, 2017, Chicago

Chicago in a fog