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Wildlife Friends of Cairo
Continue ReadingThe sparrows living on Sharia Nabil El Wakkad in the Dokki district of Cairo enjoy a rich environment. Large trees shelter them with year-round foliage — useful for sleeping — and the massive concrete buildings have chinks on their outer walls big enough for nest-building. A maze of balcony rails, electrical and telephone wires, air […]
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Why Do They Stare At Me?
Continue ReadingI like to work quiet places with few people. I avoid well-traveled locations; however, one must make exceptions for our spectacular canyons. (Above) No matter where I set up to photograph, passersby stare at me. I get a typical question from the gregarious personalities (usually a woman over 30 years): “What are you taking […]
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Imitating Another Man’s Process
Continue ReadingIt is fun and also instructive to imitate the style of a different type of photographer — in this case Garry Winogrand, a prolific artist who died with many rolls of film unprocessed plus several hundred thousand pictures developed but unedited, and still he passed on to us an extensive body of finished work. He […]
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In The Backyard During Quarantine
Continue ReadingMiddle-aged and older Americans will recall a time when communal experiences happened with fair regularity — not the world-historical, generational events like war, earthquake and famine necessarily — but mundane happenings in television shows, and excitement generated by the release of new musical albums. In the old days we even paid attention to the speeches […]
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A Prayer Before Running
Continue ReadingI would stand near the thoroughbreds and mounted jockeys, observing them walk into a tunnel leading to the track. I noticed the human athletes wearing an array of expressions, from confidence and swagger to fear and anxiety. I caught this rider in the midst of a prayer. His face seems thankful and touched by […]
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Luxor Madness
Continue ReadingIt begins when you hit pavement in Luxor — a city upriver in Egypt on the Nile, and home to the biggest religious complex ever constructed: The Temple of Karnak, a human cultural analog to the Grand Canyon. Many folks live here in poverty hustling for a living, and survive on money extracted from […]
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The Mask Is The Meaning
Continue ReadingI was traveling by car with two companions along the Aegean coast near Ephesus. The driver — an Englishman with long experience in Turkey — suggested we detour through lush agricultural land. He knew this artichoke farmer personally; so when I asked to make photographs, the fellow was among friends and there was little […]
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An Essential Cairo Image
Continue ReadingAlong the streets in Cairo, Egypt wind always blows. It rarely becomes blustery, but rather oscillates between soft currents and vigorous breezes. Every flat in the city has a clothes line, either outside a window or running parallel to a balcony. Among the tender winds and the sunlight garments dry in an hour or two. […]
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My Favorite Winter Trees
Continue ReadingDuring the past two winters I traveled north to photograph bare trees. I am inclined toward naked branches rather than limbs dressed in summer foliage. I like to see the structure of things, the patterns of the natural world, which seem endlessly surprising and worthy to contemplate. I took the photograph above at The […]
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Changing Cultures
Continue ReadingEvery world traveler has a tale of culture shock. I met a middle-aged man at a cafe in Istanbul before I plunged into the Nile Civilization; he constructed a sentence in a fashion I had not heard before. He made a city the subject, shock the verb, and culture with a possessive marker the direct object: […]
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