Skyscrapers, Dusk

The downtown towers at the end of the day, when the sky still holds color but the building lights have started to come on. Chicago is the birthplace of the skyscraper — the steel-frame high-rise was invented here in the 1880s after the Great Fire cleared the ground — and the density of the towers downtown is the direct descendant of that moment.

Photographed at dusk, June 2024, in color. Dusk is the one time of day the city is lit from two directions at once — the last of the sky and the first of the windows. Color catches the cross between the two before either one wins.