Notes From The West Bank, 20 Years On...

Village of Dir Ibziya, outside Ramallah, The West Bank, July of 2002.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the time I spent in the West Bank so many years ago. Seems like another lifetime ago, probably because it was. So much has changed, and then again, so little has.

Twenty years ago I was naive kid with a camera who thought he had a decent handle on the way things work in the world who very abruptly discovered that was not in fact the case.

I won't pretend that I don't have opinions. I certainly don't have any answers, that I’m sure of. The death toll is nothing short of catastrophic. What really blows me away is the kids in these photographs are now older than I was when I made them. And here we are, still at it.

Resale Value Is A Scam...

I was wandering around the Castro, as I sometimes do, carrying my old Leica M2, as I almost always do. It’s what you might call a “user” camera. She’s got miles on her, built in 1962, acquired by me in San Francisco around 2008. I’ve got a Zeiss 35mm that basically never comes off on the front. It’s modded up and marked up with a white paint marker for zone focusing and aperture. It’s dirty and scratched and beat up and I love it.

It’s also a bit of a conversation starter, especially for the gear heads chasing the latest equipment that haunt the City. So it gave me a little chuckle the other day, when some kid strapped with the latest Sony A7 and some massive lens that looks like a howitzer struck up a conversation. He asked me what it was, and I told him. He asked me what I’d done to it, and I told him. Then he says, without any hesitation whatsoever, “man, you totally killed your resale value.” I laughed and told him they’d probably bury me with it.

For what it’s worth, here’s what I’m carrying…

Leica M2, built around 1962. Modified shutter dial and film counter. Aftermarket quick rewind crank. Original vulcanite replaced with grip-tac. Carl Zeiss Zm 35mm f/2.8 Biogon.

Leica M3, built in 1959, aftermarket quick rewind crank, original vulcanite replaced with grip-tac, Voigtlander 28mm accessory finder. Sporting either a Carl Zeiss ZM 50mm f/1.5 Sonnar or a 28mm f/2.8 Biogon.

Hasselblad X-Pan, build around 1999 / 2000. On the front is usually a Hasselblad 45mm f/4 lens, sometimes I use a Fuji 90mm f/4. The camera shoots a full panoramic 35mm frame as well as a standard 35mm frame, and can switch formats mid roll. Amazing little machine...

Not Dead Yet...

I was notified about a large spike in traffic to this website over the course of a few days a couple weeks back. I’m not talking server crashing volume, but significant, to say the least. I’ve been busy, not posting much of anything, sidetracked by summer and children and other obligations. Seemed strange that I should be seeing any traction online. After a bit of digging it wasn’t immediately apparent where the traffic was coming from; it wasn’t a link or some social media post or anything direct. With a little more research, I quickly determined that a fine art photographer based in Washington D.C., with a name very similar to mine, was killed in cold blood, and a bunch of the search traffic of his name ended up at my website.

C'est la vie. I suppose there is no such thing as bad publicity. My condolences to the family of Joe Shymanski.

Here is a photograph from Slovakia last summer, that does not necessarily prove that I am alive.

Still behind, as always, suffering from a perpetual backlog of unrealized photographs. Sitting on twelve roles of film from Paris in June. One day soon they’ll end up here….

I'm A Lousy Tourist...

I care little for churches or monuments, I think walking tours are silly. I like to wander around and sit in cafes and eat and drink and watch other, more serious tourists fumble about. Though I’m always with a camera, always looking for pictures.

View from Prague Castle, Czechia.

Prague, Czechia.

I thoroughly enjoy and embrace the pleasure of being idle. It makes me a lousy tourist and it drives my wife crazy, but it works for me…

A few snaps from Prague. Prints upon request.

There Is Something To Be Said For Trains...

It’s silly when you think about it, trains being so ubiquitus in Europe, and somehow still such a past novelty in the States, but there is something to be said for trains in general, a subtle romanticism, some small sense of adventure, even if it’s just a really big bus with a bar car.

Somewhere in Slovakia…

We arrived at the train station in Budapest at 9am for a 10am train, quickly realizing that the 10am was canceled and the only train to Prague that day left in 4 minutes. Running ensued, we literally stopped the doors from closing as we piled into the last car. We met a nice kid from Ukraine fleeing the war. It was an interesting morning.

Through Hungary, Slovakia, into Czechia and Prague, it was a long ride in the same car as a bachelor party that was traveling with a cooler full of what looked like high-proof cough syrup. Anyway, there is something to be said for trains…