Rainy Morning in Chicago

Flamingo Sculpture Chicago

A beautiful rainy foggy quiet morning in Chicago. It is very unlike me to get up for dawn, but I looked out the window, a couple of mornings ago,  and saw the weather combination and couldn’t help myself. The city was beautiful. These photos are taken with my Nikon D600 …

Year End 2016

Happy New Year! Here are my 9 “best” pics that I posted in 2016 according to Instagram. I spent pretty much the whole year in Chicago… Cheers to 2017!

Winter Wonderland Chicago

First real snow of the year. It was one of those perfectly snowy romantic evenings last night in Chicago  

Phone Editing- Chicago Rainy Days

Rainy Chicago

  It’s been raining a lot  in Chicago for the past few days. I have been experimenting with cell phone apps which is something I almost never use and I bought the Facetune app,  I had seen other people brighten up their Instagram pics with it ( on non-people pics) so I …

June and July 4th Weekend, Chicago

The First weekend in July had one of the most beautiful and dramatic sunsets I have ever seen in Chicago   On the night of the 4th of July I went out to the lakefront to watch the fireworks and found a nice big puddle for this reflection shot!   …

Lens Whacking or Free Lensing

  I was reading about lens whacking on the web so I decided to go give it a go. All of the camera effects you see my video above were done in-camera.   Lens whacking created the selective focus effects and the light leaks, which gives an overall soft dreamy and …

Chicago Critics Film Festival 2016

I photographed the Chicago Critics Film fest this year for the second time in a row. I had a fantastic time. It is a festival organized by the Chicago Critics Film Association and they show some of their favorite films of the year with talks afterwards with the filmmakers. I …

Tips for Photography and Travel in Japan

I went  to Japan a few months ago for the first time, and I had an amazing time. I had always wanted to go there as I grew up with Japanese friends and a Mom who spoke the language,  and it was everything I imagined to to be and more. I was …

Memory Lane/ Piss Alley, Tokyo Street Photography

My first trip to Tokyo was a fantastic experience and this was one of my first and favorite stops. Located in Shinjuku near the train station, the small alley crammed with bars and restaurants is a nostalgic trip to post-war Japan. Omoide Yokocho, nicknamed “Piss Alley” in the 1940’s (there …

Snow week in Chicago – tips for shooting snow photography

    Lens hood! Mostly for keeping the snow out of your lens. I lost mine in the snow this week and just received my bargain replacement in the mail. Looks good so far. Bring a lens cloth too, cause some snow is going land on your the lens. I always …

Photography through Windows

It took me a while to figure out that taking pictures through windows can be at least almost as good as if the glass wasn’t there. In fact, provided your shutter speed is fast enough, you can even get pretty good pics through the windows of a moving train. But there …

Dublin at Christmas

I love Dublin at Christmas time, if there is anything Irish people know how to do is celebrate.  The city is full of people wearing Christmas jumpers, there are carolers on Grafton street and the city is glowing with Christmas lights. The Saturday before Christmas is usually a day for the “12 …

3 Days in Beijing

Photographing Beijing Beijing has been one of my all time favorite places to photograph. I was particularly lucky that there was very little smog during my stay, although as I was leaving it was starting to get bad. I felt very safe there. Despite what I had heard about overcrowding …