Journal
“Blogging is like work, but without coworkers thwarting you at every turn.”
Creating and maintaining a photography site—even a personal one—is surprisingly a lot of work. Things never seem to fit the page the way you want them to. You constantly find yourself rearranging text and images randomly until something "clicks," and you achieve that look you didn't know you wanted.
A Walk in Philly
Sometimes when I have nothing to do, I go to Philly, where I stumble from bar to bar, taking photos in between. Lots of camera shake. The shots tend to get blurrier as the day progresses—no idea why.
Sometimes when I have nothing to do, I go to Philly, where I stumble from bar to bar, taking photos in between. Lots of camera shake. The shots tend to get blurrier as the day progresses—no idea why.
September in Pennsylvania
A couple of weeks of summer are left. Sunflowers, tomatoes, and such…
A couple of weeks of summer are left. Sunflowers, tomatoes, and such…
Promised Land, PA, Summer 2021
A camping trip to Promised Land, PA. Packing light is not my forte, and years of playing Tetris means I can fit all of that into my Jetta. And, yes, those are a doorway rug and a luggage rack for my suitcase.
A camping trip to Promised Land, PA. Packing light is not my forté, and years of playing Tetris means I can fit all of that into my Jetta. And, yes, those are a doorway rug and a luggage rack for my suitcase. The suitcase is self-explanatory: unless you're backpacking, there's no reason to deny yourself unwrinkled and neatly-folded clothes. The luggage rack brings the suitcase to the same level as the gravity chair, so you can access items without getting up. And, of course, the gravity chair is just so much more comfortable than a blow-up mattress. So there you are.
Cape Lookout, NC, Summer 2021
A trip to Cape Lookout, North Carolina, Summer of 2021.
A trip to Cape Lookout, North Carolina, Summer of 2021. If you love sand, wind, no-see-ums, and rain, this place is for you. And if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes. And yet, I loved this trip and would do this again.
A few words of advice: the wind on the beach is no joke, and if you think you can set up that tent by yourself, think again. Get them nice and grippy screw-in tent anchors. Bring some extra guy-lines and tensioners. I'd also grab some deadman sand anchors.
When it's not windy, it's raining, so make sure you got a poncho, keep your tent flaps zipped up, and have some extra tarps. And when it stops raining, that's when the bugs come it. A head net mesh came in very useful.
The deet spray doesn't do much again the flies and the no-see-ums. So, again, keep the tent zipped up, bring some jeans and long-sleeve shirts. Besides that, there is nothing else you can do but hunker down by the fire and hope the wind returns.
Ohiopyle Park, PA, Spring 2021
Camping at the Ohiopyle State Park in PA, Spring 2021
Camping at the Ohiopyle State Park in PA, Spring 2021
Elk Neck State Park, 2020
Elk Neck State Park is a public recreation area located between Chesapeake Bay and the Elk River near the southern tip of the Elk Neck Peninsula in Cecil County, Maryland.
Elk Neck State Park is a public recreation area located between Chesapeake Bay and the Elk River near the southern tip of the Elk Neck Peninsula in Cecil County, Maryland. The state park is home to the historic Turkey Point Light and offers land-based and water-based recreation. For best viewing experience, enter the full-screen mode in your browser (try hitting F11 for desktop browsers).
Luxembourg, Fall 2017
This was a day tripper on a train from Paris. First-class with all the cognac I was willing to drink so early in the morning.
This was a day tripper on a train from Paris. First-class with all the cognac I was willing to drink so early in the morning. If I knew anything about Luxembourg City, I would've known better than to arrive on a Saturday morning. The only place of note that opened before noon was a McDonald's. Also, it was raining. This made for some decent photos of a dramatic sky. Still, I should've grabbed an umbrella. Needless to say, as soon as the bars opened, my photoshoot ended.
Louvre Sculptures & Statues
Sculptures and statues are the same things if you ask me. The distinction is purely semantic. But there are people who like drawing fine lines in the sand and argue over them until they are blue in the face. You may know them as art critics. Louvre has one of the largest collections of chiseled rocks, both large and small. Here are a few of them.
Sculptures and statues are the same things if you ask me. The distinction is purely semantic. But there are people who like drawing fine lines in the sand and argue over them until they are blue in the face. You may know them as art critics. Louvre has one of the largest collections of chiseled rocks, both large and small. Here are a few of them.
Louvre: the Assyrian Collection
A few photos of the Assyrian collection at the Louvre.
Here’s an OpenAI summary “for a second-grader” of the official Louvre exhibit description, for those of us too lazy to read (or write). I don’t know about you, but I find this entirely sufficient.
In ancient times, the land that is now Iraq was part of a powerful empire called the Assyrian Empire. The king of that empire had a new capital built near Mosul. But after the king died, the city lost its status as a capital. The ruins of that city were not discovered until French archaeologists dug them up in the 19th century. The ruins are now in a museum in Paris. And this discovery created a new type of archaeology called Near Eastern archaeology.
