Light Trails
Driving through Chicago on a summer night feels like being part of the city's heartbeat. The streets buzz with life—food smells drifting from open windows, conversations floating on the warm breeze, and the hum of traffic filling the gaps. Everywhere you look, there's movement, color, and light, all mixing under the glow of streetlamps and neon signs. It was the perfect night for light trail photography, where time, motion, and light come together to create something unexpected.
If you’ve never tried light trail photography, it’s like capturing a city in motion. You set your camera to a long exposure, and instead of freezing a moment, you let headlights, taillights, and even flashing billboards stretch into abstract lines of light. It takes patience—you wait for the right moment, click the shutter, and let the world blur through the frame. When it works, the result is a photo where light seems to flow endlessly, telling its own story.
That night, as we drove through the city, the cool breeze from Lake Michigan brushing against my face, I had an idea. Usually, the photographer stands still, and the lights of moving cars create the trails. But what if I switched it up? What if I took photos while I was moving, with the city zooming past me? Since I wasn’t driving, I had the chance to try it.
Sitting in the passenger seat, I set my camera on the dashboard for stability and focused through the windshield. I adjusted the settings, opened the shutter, and let Chicago paint the scene. Every corner we turned twisted the light into new shapes—ribbons of headlights, taillights, streetlamps all curving and weaving through the dark streets. The irregularities in the pavement echoed in the oscillations of the streaks. It wasn’t just me taking photos of the city; it felt like the city itself was shaping the image.
When we finally parked, I packed up my camera, feeling a sense of accomplishment. The light trails were fleeting, but creating something so dynamic, so spontaneous, left a mark. It was a new way of seeing a place I thought I already knew.