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You’re Definitely Not In Kansas Anymore
Continue ReadingOn your first journey beyond the Western World even routine situations will flummox you. You cannot avoid these gopher holes despite prior study and meticulous planning. If you stay gone long enough — exposing yourself nakedly and with bravery — hard experience will shatter preconceptions, adding a new and more spacious dimension to your character. […]
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Giza — Deep In December Haze
Continue ReadingLooking northeast toward Cairo from the hill above Giza Pyramids on an opaque winter morning, I could see just five blocks into the closest neighborhoods. The rest of the gigantic city lay obscured by dust, haze, mist, and smog. Nothing prepares you for the grandeur of the Giza complex. Its artistic theme and layout impresses […]
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Figures in the Landscape
Continue ReadingHuman figures add interest and comprehension to a landscape. However, it is not often possible to include them in a photograph; it involves patiently waiting for people to appear, and then waiting longer for them to arrange themsevles into an interesting configuration in relation to the earth. Or you can get lucky occasionally, as […]
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The Joy of Small Victories
Continue ReadingThis photograph was not created at the Olympic Games. It is not an NCAA championship, or a even city-sponsored marathon. It is a provincial race across humid and heavily-forested terrain in the state of Illinois. There will be no award ceremony for this competitor because his team did not win, or even place highly. Notice […]
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Calls To Prayer On Testosterone
Continue ReadingHaving lived in Egypt above a neighborhood mosque for nearly two years, I was accustomed to hearing the daily call to prayer at first light. I could sleep through it after a while despite its amplified intrusion into my room. My first awakenings in Yemen — in the ancient part of the capital city — […]
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Boy With A Wasting Disease
Continue ReadingThe boy had contracted the tuberculosis bacterium, causing a wasting disease among the scourges of the 19th century. Here he reclines in a camp alongside his grieving sister — both of them orphaned refugees amidst the devastation of the Civil War — their home now a make-shift tent, their uppermost concerns finding enough to […]
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Another From the Island of Serendip
Continue ReadingLike the three princes of Serendip, I often find what I am not looking for. I was walking along the Gulf of Finland searching for the simple house Peter the Great designed for himself — away from the monumental palace at Petergof — when I entered this scene. I felt as if I had stepped […]
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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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Another Zoomorph?
Continue ReadingIn a flow down over boulders on a desert mountain, It is strange to observe a sea mammal emerging from the stream.
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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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