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Remembering Fox Talbot
Continue ReadingWilliam Henry Fox Talbot was a distinguished English gentleman of the 19th Century, and a failed artist/draftsman. That defeat seems to have propelled him toward his invention of “photogenic drawing,” or “photography.” He put together a book in 1844 called The Pencil of Nature, his metaphorical way of describing the new type of drawing with […]
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An Unconscious Tribute
Continue ReadingRobert Frank’s photograph, “Trolley — New Orleans, 1955” appeared on the cover of his famous book which laid bare America’s dark side. I made this photo with no conscious recollection of Mr. Frank’s image, however I am clear I was under his influence. I have always liked this motif. Frank’s image is much more […]
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A Man of Many Stimuli
Continue ReadingYou have probably seen vehicles around your town smothered in decals and bumper stickers, each proclaiming one ideology or another, sometimes giving information about places in the world to which the owners have traveled. Military folks appear at airports in uniforms bristling with service ribbons, medals and rank insignias. Occasionally one sees members of […]
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Interplanetary Travel Not Required
Continue ReadingIf you yearn to walk upon other planets, experiencing the alien and bizarre, you might satisfy your craving without traversing our solar system. It will take a little travel and modest fortitude (you cannot fear empty places), but you can find the ultra-strange here at home on Earth, and there will be a bonus: our […]
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Thinking of Sudek
Continue ReadingJosef Sudek suffered a gruesome injury in World War I — as a result he lost his right arm, yet finished a strong career in photography working to an advanced age, using a cumbersome large format camera to the end of his life. I am thinking of a series Mr. Sudek created looking out […]
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Looking and Not Seeing (For Years)
Continue ReadingThis succulent lived in my front yard for three years before I took a good look at it, and even then I am not sure how clear were my perceptions. The agave grows eight feet from my parking space in front of the garage — less than two feet from the sidewalk leading into the […]
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Crossing the Street Egyptian Style
Continue ReadingI lived in Alexandria, Egypt for about a month and stayed two years in Cairo. The latter city sprawls on both sides of the Nile river, a metropolis containing 18 million persons, few personal vehicles but lots of taxis, delivery trucks and micro-buses. In most places there are no traffic controls whatsoever. Downtown Cairo has […]
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Jubilation
Continue ReadingIn darkness I waded into this jubilant crowd with one camera and a single fast lens. I have rarely witnessed such joy and chaos. Football fans — packing torches and giant flags — seemed to materialize all at once from every direction; buses lined up to disgorge mostly young people keen to celebrate a victory. […]
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Irish Do The Oddest Things
Continue ReadingI am not singling out the Irish for special abuse. I belong to their tribe in spirit and by genetics. Really, any group of human beings would do. Correct my title to: “People do the oddest things,” and these two images will apply universally.
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Rarely It Happens
Continue ReadingHow does an alignment like this ever happen spontaneously, except with infinite rolls of the dice, and even then …? And how does it happen that a photographer approaches that spot at exactly the right moment to capture this strange synchrony? I lack a good answer.
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