I live in Chicago, a city known for its skyscrapers. Of the 40 tallest buildings in the city, half have been constructed since the year 2000.

These impressive cloud-piercing structures have skins of glass. Their shiny surfaces redirect the sunshine into the shadows, softening the light and sometimes infusing it with a certain sort of magic. It’s the magic of giant mirrors, a magic that creates a feeling that goes beyond seeing. 

Photographer Duane Michals once said: “Photographers tend not to photograph what they can’t see, which is the very reason one should try to attempt it.”

There are some special spots in the city where skyscraper magic can be really appreciated. They are places where two walls of steel and glass meet to form an alcove on the outside of a building. If you stand within the compass of the alcove and look straight up, nearby skyscrapers sometimes appear like shards in a giant kaleidoscope. Sometimes they are like stems in a kelp forest in which the geometry of nature has been replaced with the geometry of Euclid. Always, from far above, comes the light, filtered and reflected, and with the light there is magic. [Official Website]