Imagine There's An Image

I'm delighted that one of my photos, American Flyer, has been included in the current "issue" of Snaps Magazine.

Thanks to my photobloggin' buddy Prairie Girl for telling me about Snaps Magazine - and check out her contribution to this same issue (scroll down near the bottom of this page, and you will see Prairie Girl's photo, and then a little further down, mine.)

Clay, Snaps' creator, is getting submissions from all over the world for this new photo website. Each month's "issue" has a theme - September's is "Transportation" (hence Prairie Girl's elegant Buick photo and my little green wagon.)

Check out the Snaps archive as well - there are issues back to April 2005.

I'm pleased and honored to be in such good company.

Hey, I'm getting really good at this!

No sooner did I mention the columns of Krugman and Dowd on the New York Times online website that they were, effectively, pulled via the Times wonderful new "Times Select" program.

That is, you fork over about fifty bucks annually, and they let you read the columns of Krugman and Dowd, along with columnists Frank Rich and Thomas Friedman.

Donald Luskin has an interesting take on this move by the Times. As for me, reading Krugman, Dowd, and Rich has typcially been an exercize in masochism; I like to read points of view different from my own, but this is a trio that has lost all its collective marbles. As for Thomas Friedman, it's too bad - I occassionally find his columns enlightening.

Let's see - upon whom next shall I cast my Evil Eye?... oh, yeah - gotta love that Cindy Sheehan!

Talk about timing! No sooner do I plug Mike Johnston's The Sunday Morning Photographer column that I see it's come to an end!

Here is (literally) The Last Column. Darn.

Fortunately, you can find archives of Mike's columns around the web. I go to the one at Luminous Landscape.

Gee, do you think if I said something nice about Paul Krugman's or Maureen Dowd's columns, they might call it quits?

If only...

"Dad, thought you might be interested in this..."

So read the email I got from my first-born, Leah, a few weeks ago. The "this" she referred to was a link to Washington Photo Safari, and in particular, a description of a two-hour "Photo Safari" a few weeks hence in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia.

Well, it looked pretty good to me - I'd been in a photo-slump for months, and thought the interaction with a group would do me good. Plus, at only $30, the price was right.

So this past Saturday, I charged up my batteries, formatted my CF cards, and headed out. Alexandria is only an hours drive from Annapolis, just across the Potomac from Washington, D.C. It's a small city, and at it's core, "Old Towne," is a nicely-restored several-block district of buildings dating to the time of George Washington, mixed with upscale restaurants and boutiques.

I got to the Torpedo Factory, our meeting place on Alexandria's renovated waterfront, a half-hour early, and had a chance to chat with our Safari leader, Dave Luria. I won't go into Dave's impressive credentials, which you can read about here. But in addition to all that, Dave is a friendly and engaging fellow, and even from the short time I spent around him, I could see that he is a great teacher.

Over the next half-hour, more and more participants gathered, about twenty in all. We were a nice mix of (mostly) young and (me) old, of beginners and more advanced amateurs. One charming young lady arrived at the last minute, having just bought her brand-new digital camera on the way to the event.

Dave spent about a half-hour going over some basics ranging from how to hold a camera properly to some sound travel photography advice. I truly enjoyed the way he used his sense of humor to make his points. For example, he said that most people approach taking travel pictures as "faith-based photography" - take 500 shots and pray that ten of them will come out decent.

Having concluded his basic training, Dave led us around the small waterfront, suggesting subjects and pointing out good vantage points. Then it was off throught the old streets of Old Town.

Some of my fellow Photo Safari photogs


Alexandria waterfront



Blue Door to Nowhere

Being in a group of enthusiastic photographers was a big lift. I realized that I always go out and shoot on my own, and while that has its advantages, I think it also takes a psychological toll. I tell you what - I intend to do this sort of thing more often.

If you live in the Washington or Baltimore area, you should definitely check out the Photo Safari web site. For that matter, even if you're just visiting the area, take a few minutes to see if there's a Photo Safari that will be convenient for you to join. Some are full-day or half-day, and many are only 2 hours long. Tell Dave I sent you!

Ok, now it's safe for me to admit it. That's because Mike Johnston, in his estimable The Sunday Morning Photographer column, revealed the following:

To be honest, most of my pictures suck. The saving grace of that admission is that most of your pictures suck, too. How could I possibly know such a thing? Because most of everybody's pictures suck, that's how. I've seen Cartier-Bresson's contact sheets, and most of his pictures sucked. One of my teachers said that it was an epiphany for him when he took a class from Garry Winogrand and learned that most of Winogrand's exposures sucked. It's the way it is.

He said it so well, there's no need for me to expound further on this subject. But see the entire artlce, entitled The Magic Bullet, here. And if you aren't reading Mike Johnston's columns regularly, well, you should.

Sandy and I took a ride to Gettysburg a few weekends ago to take a quick look at the Gettysburg National Military Park. We plan to go back there again for a longer visit, but I just wanted to show Sandy, a Canadian who never studied Civil War history, a little of the site.

We decided to stop and get out of the car at the Pennsylvania Memorial, an impressive, domed edifice. As luck would have it, there was a group of musicians giving a concert under the dome of the memorial. They were all dressed in Union uniforms and played period instruments. The choice of music was based on notes and diaries of various regimental bands of both the Union and the Confederacy. Besides the privilege of hearing the performance of these wonderful musicians, it was a great photo-op, as you can see from these photos.


I hadn't been there for at least 35 years. Back in my youth, I visited Gettysburg with my friend Bill Spitz, who was and is an expert on the battle of Gettysburg and military history in general. My plans are to go back to Gettysburg with Bill soon, soak up as much of his tutelege as possible, then take Sandy back there and give her the Readers' Digest version.

Visiting Gettysburg and being married to a Canadian got me thinking about something very odd, too. Just imagine, while Americans of my generation had to learn thousands of facts and dates for our history, our Canadian friends and relatives only had to learn

• 1534 - Jaques Cartier discovers the place


• 1759 - The British kick the French out


• 1867 - British North America Act

.. and that last one was a gimme, since every Canadian of a certain age remembers Expo 67 in Montréal, which commemorated the 100th anniversary of the BNA.

Well, OK, since the time Sandy left Canada (when she married me in 1980,) you have to add the Patriation of the Constitution of 1982, but even Sandy didn't hear about that one until years later, since American media is ten times more likely to report a bus plunge in Kyrgyzstan than a significant events just next door in the Land of the Mounties.

So my question to my Canadian friends is: just what the heck did you do with all that time you didn't have to spend on Canadian history in 10th grade!

Editor's note: The Editor sincerely apologizes to all our Canadian readers, especially Prairie Girl, for the crass lack of cross-border sensitivity on the part of the writer. Our staff has in fact researched and found at least five or six additional bullet points in Canadian history.