The greatest photograph I never took.

It was in the middle of a vibrant street market in one of the squares in Marseilles.

It was of a group of Muslim women, crowded and pressing up against each other, pawing around a 8' x 8' table filled with colorful assortment of undergarments, ranging from push-up bras to strapless numbers, as well as the great diversity of panties from small to smaller, and to smallest.  The banter was highly animated and full of laughter, with women helping other women find that special something, even holding up bras to model.

The light was perfect.  The colors, spectacular.  I could have taken 2 shots without breaking stride.  I knew I could.

If I lifted my camera, it could have become an extremely unpleasant scene very quickly.

So, as I walked by, I lifted the camera to my eye in my imagination alone.  I know my camera like the back of my hand, so I know what would have been where in the frame at the precise moment I would have fired the shutter.  I saw my focus point.

They are beautiful photographs.  I think I like the first one better than the second.  Perhaps, one day, though some as-yet-unknown scientific process, we will be able to create the pictures that live in our memory.  When that day comes, I promise to post it here.  

There is no reason.

2012 Snow Diptych, Bainbridge Island, Washington.

Q: Why did you take that picture?

A: For no other reason than I wanted to.  It was an impulse to make a photograph.

Q: But what are you trying to say?

A: Why do I have to be saying anything?

If you like this photo. . .

The first snow, Bainbridge Island, Washignton.

One of the things that I think is funny is there is a great need for photographers, and artists in general, to be held out as singular visionaries, whose genius springs forth from their brains, as complete as Zeus' children.  

The fact of the matter is that any photographer who is worth anything has in his or her brain millions of images that have come before.  And that is just talking about photographs. No more than our bodies, to a greater or lesser extent, reflect what you feed them, how we photograph is a reflection of what we choose to look at.

People often ask me how one learns photography.  I think it was Walker Evans who admonished his students to really look, to stare.  I would add to that, look at good photography.

I tend to like "old school" photographers.  One of the greatest was Harry Callahan.  [Wikipedia will be offline on Jan. 18, 2012 to protest SOPA.] The photograph on the right is one of many Callahan took of his wife, Eleanor. If you interested, here is a link to an interview of Harry Callahan from early 1980s.  He's as unpretentious a photographer as you will find.

It seems a little unfashionable in certain photography circles to talk about who your inspirations are.  I have no problem telling you that Harry Callahan is one of my artistic heroes.  

Winter light.

Small reflection.

When I am in between jobs I walk around with my camera and take photos of whatever interests me.  I like to think of if as taking batting practice, but where I get to keep the triples and home runs.  I got some nice hits today.

Looks like a crime scene to me. (Part IV)

Phil, Bainbridge Island, Washington.

I live on an island that lies a 35 minute ferry boat ride from Seattle.  In the early 1900s, Bainbridge Island was the center of shipbuilding on the West Coast, on account of the quality and quantity of timber.  Bainbridge is nearly the exact dimensions of Manhattan.  The entire island was clear-cut more than 100 years ago.

Where trees were not replaced, farms were born.  If you have read Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson, you have read of the fictionalized life of Bainbridge Island.  It is a place where Japanese farmers settled in the early part of the 20th century to farm strawberries.

Farms live and die.  There are efforts underway to bring several back to life.  Some, though, are being reclaimed by the land.  This is a photograph of just such a place.

Joining the great stream of images.

In this post-modern world, the real smarties go around saying that are no original thoughts.  The annoying thing about these post-modernists is that if they knew Ecclesiastes, they would have realized that their important insight about unoriginality is, in fact, a very unoriginal thought.


This is a rather round about way of introducing you to a new addition to my website, called Projects.  I create a tremendous amount of images, not simply as commercial work, but from my own need to photograph.  For the last three years, I have probably averaged 35k images per year.  (I raised the question of "how many photos do you take a year" once in a photography forum.  A lot of people had some very strong opinions about the value of working one way or another, which I found odd, as if there were some correct way to produce a photograph. I was just curious how many photos other photographers took, as I don't hang out with photographers, except virtually.)

In fulfilling my own need to photograph, patterns and themes and objects naturally arise.  There isn't anything I am not interested in photographing.  Under the new heading of Projects, I will be presenting different collections of images.  Some with be quite linear, like the first entry: Chairs.  Others will not be.

If you want a trip down back in time to 1950s America and want to see another photographer (some punk named Robert Frank) who liked chairs, visit this issue of Life Magazine.

What we don't see.

One of the aspects of photography that I enjoy is the silent collaboration I have with every person that looks at my photographs.  As a photographer, I can only hope my images find people who are in the mood to look.

I took this photo last September on Waikiki Beach on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.

I was struck immediately by the way this man walked out of the  water.  He strode.  There are certain men whose movements are marked by having served in the military.  This man was one of them.

His friend is enjoying a dip in the warm and blue waters of Waikiki.  They have been life long friends.  They like to travel.  His friend loves to swim.

"It's his favorite thing," the man told me.

Walking around Bremerton with Walker Evans and William Eggleston.

When I am between assignments, I wander with my camera.

I took these 5 photographs this afternoon in Bremerton, Washington.  They are of the environment around a discount shopping mall.  It has a Value Village, a second-hand store based in the Pacific Northwest.  The old Dollar Store is now vacant.  Another huge retail space, former home of Stupid Prices, sits empty.  A Grocery Outlet thrives.

When I get tired of looking at depressing urban environments, I look at trees.  When I get tired of looking at trees, I look at people.  When I get tired of people, I look at water.  I never get tired of looking.  That was one of the things I found so re-assuring when I discovered Walker Evans and William Eggleston: neither man seems/ed to get tired of looking at the world.