This year I attended Chicago’s annual Venetian Night for the first time. It starts at sunset with a parade of lighted boats along the lake front and is followed by a spectacular fireworks show set to the music of a live orchestra.

Since none of us were too sure of where the event would take place, we ended up on the waterfront behind Shedd Aquarium, which turned out to be a good location for viewing the fireworks even thought it basically left us unable to see the boat parade at all. Thus, I got a number of interesting photos of fireworks, but sadly I have none of the parade.

Also by way of Make Magazine, I found this top 10 list of mods for disposable cameras.

By way of Make Magazine I came across a schematic and instructions for building your own lightning-activated shutter release.

For years, I’ve thought the Race to Mackinac would be a good photo opportunity. Finally, this past weekend, I was in Chicago and I had my opportunity to go.

I got a few photos that I liked, but I can’t help being less than thrilled about the opportunities the event presented. The boats didn’t even raise their sails until they were too far out to be captured decently from shore with a lens weighing less than 40lbs. Since I don’t happen to own any such lenses, I ended up taking photos of the people preparing for the race, and a few shots of the yacht club with the city in the background.

In the end, if you end a day with one good photo you’ve done well, and by that measure I feel that the day wasn’t wasted. But I probably won’t be rushing back to shoot the Race to Mackinac again — even with next year being the 100th running.