When I’m out walking around I often see weird things. For example, one time I witnessed an older man, extremely well dressed, carry a giant stuffed animal penguin down Rush Street. It was so odd. Then again, I’m always scouting for street-style photos so I’ve become quite accustomed to constantly monitoring my surroundings. You’d be surprised at what normal people do on the sidewalks when they think no one is looking.

So I always become happy when I stumble upon special moments. Yesterday I heard a little girl with a large red shopping bag tell her mom that “today is the best day of my life because I finally got to visit the American Girls.” It made me remember how excited I was to get my first American Girl doll (Samantha). It’s little things like these that make me smile, all these personal moments. In fact, it’s what I love most about living in a world-class city. There’s infinite layers of human experience all super-imposed on top of a spectacular, visually stimulating urban environment. That’s why it’s not as rare as you might think for me to see something like this bride and her bridesmaid jumping for joy after the wedding ceremony. Life is happening all around us in a city like Chicago, but rarely do I have my camera ready as I did this time. It was in my hand, powered on, with the lens cap off and ready to go. This time it was good luck, plain and simple, and boy did I luck out.