Vision and Voice
I wrote a book called Vision & Voice. This is not about that. This is about the constant stream of questions I hear that all share a similar quest fuelled by a similar desperation. The questions all centre on one recurring desire: the longing to find your voice photographically. I have tried, in my way, to answer the question creatively, …
My Gear Shift
Once in a while I abandon all sense and do a gear post. This is one of them. I hope it’s helpful to you and that you find the question of why I use the gear I do more interesting than which gear, specifically, I use. It’s the one question that seems to get left out of these discussions; everyone …
What’s Your Potato?
It’s a slow Sunday afternoon. Coffee’s on. Van Morrison is mumbling his way through The Healing Game album. I head to Africa (finally!) at the end of this week after a three week delay. I’m restless. When I’m restless I write. And I’m hoping this time it sticks because I’ve written and re-written this article several times now, unable to …
Photographic Memories: Russia
It was January 1992 and the Iron Curtain had fallen so recently we were all still blinking our eyes. The cold war was over and I was in Russia, shivering through one of the coldest winters of my life, brought there by idealism and delusions of Dr. Zhivago. I lived that winter in an apartment in Yaroslavl that was colder …
Gear for 2+ Months
In a few days I jump onto my first flight of 2016 and head to Johannesburg. From there I drive to Lesotho and then on horseback into the mountains to photograph for a couple NGOs working among shepherd children. This will be the first leg of a trip that’ll take me to Namibia, Cape Town, Kenya’s Maasai Mara, Zanzibar, Rajasthan, …
Let It Be.
I spent yesterday reading hundreds and hundreds of birthday wishes, humbled by the incredible connections and friendships I have with so many of you that I’ve met only through my books or this blog. I’m also a little grateful I don’t have to sign a thousand Christmas cards or buy stuff for thousands of y’all. But what I can give, …
Holiday Gift Guide
You knew I wasn’t going to be the voice telling you to go buy more stuff for the photographers in your life, right? Right about now every blog out there is starting to release their Holiday Gift Guides and you should probably go there if you are looking for something cool to buy yourself, oops, I mean to buy someone …
Steller Sea Lions
In the Salish Sea, the wild green waters of the Strait of Georgia, between British Columbia’s west coast and Vancouver Island, there’s an island that takes a couple ferries to get to. The water is full of life upon life and is the winter home to Steller Sea Lions who will winter there and feed on the spring herring …
Find The Magic
I had a moment in Italy last month as I walked down cobbled streets looking at reflections in the canals of Venice, raising my camera once in a while to my face, feeling like I was in that state of flow that most creatives feel in their souls like a drug when it comes over them. That moment was a …
An Iconic Photograph, or a Photographed Icon?
Talk to any traveling photographer for long and the words “iconic photograph” will come tumbling out of their mouth as surely as a bus-load of tourists with selfie-sticks will spill out the moment you arrive at a destination and set up a tripod, thrilled to be there alone. As goals go, it sure beats wanting nothing more from our images …