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My Favorite Re-Enactor
Continue ReadingThere was something special about Katie. She was impersonating an 18th century woman on the Ohio frontier. I fastened on her emerald green eyes, whose pupils were surrounded by yellow/orange coronas —- irregular in shape like solar flares. In our brief encounter her range of facial expression astonished me. She could switch from beautiful […]
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Conversations With Tourists
Continue ReadingI encountered on this day a husband and wife from the British Isles. The man held a camera and looked toward me quizzically, seeming a bit frustrated. Wandering places like this in hot weather I rarely meet anyone, except the occasional taciturn man, often driving a truck lifted absurdly high off the ground. I felt […]
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Our Neighborhood Sharpener of Blades
Continue ReadingNot every place in the world has been gutted, renovated, expressed algorithmically, and made palatable to affluent tastes. Cairo, Egypt is such a zone where you may still see unassimilated humans. This man goes through neighborhoods singing a colloquial song: “I make a knife sharp. I make a knife sharp.” As with other street […]
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My Own Saint Victoire
Continue ReadingIt is said Paul Cezanne painted Mount Saint Victoire in the Provencal region of France sixty times, watercolors included. He probably made drawings and sketches of this subject as well. Likewise I have returned over and over to this locally famous mountain in Arizona (which has similarities with Saint Victoire), made dozens of photographs […]
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Making Pictures Out of Stubbornness
Continue ReadingI confess these two images exist due to stubborn character and ingrained habit, cabin fever, therefore mild boredom and no kind of inspiration. I went with one camera and one lens expecting nothing. We walked a mile or two under imperfect light, finding dry washes, creosote and haze obscuring distant subjects. I kept looking and […]
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An Incorrect Response to An Open Pit
Continue ReadingFor years people have told me that surface mines are bad — at least undesirable — destructive to land, even obliterating whole mountains. Nevertheless I have always found them fascinating to look at and aesthetically pleasing, as described by this image taken on the eastern edge of Arizona.
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Children Playing in Sand and Fog
Continue ReadingA cloud of sand and fog covered Sana’a, Yemen during my one winter’s residence. The odd conditions persisted several days. Neighborhood kids ignored the weather, playing under streetlamps as usual late into evening. On lightly traveled streets Yemeni children stake out playgrounds with exclusive rights; girls enjoy hopscotch and boys organize dodge ball combats — […]
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Praise for the Specimen, #2
Continue ReadingWe were coming to the end of an automobile trip and had reached south of Payson, Arizona. It was late in the day; everyone was tired and we looked forward to sleeping at home for the first time in a week. When I saw this regal cottonwood tree lit by the sun — circled […]
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Concerning Minimalism
Continue ReadingI take minimalism to mean art which eliminates superfluous detail, the goal being to strip away unique embellishments, ending with pure visual experience. Pure — allowing a viewer to see what is there and nothing more. It might be the opposite of Baroque, a style known for profuse and luxurious surface detail, sometimes including […]
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A Struggle Among the Street Ladies
Continue ReadingOnce a month in the street below my apartment in the Dokki district of Cairo, alms were distributed from the local mosque to widows and poor women of the neighborhood. This often gave rise to a dispute. The destitute ladies would crush one another trying to reach a woman in the center handing out paper […]
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