Blog
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Death along the Ganges
As Americans – like most “Westerners” – we are for the most part, relatively isolated from death.  Not that we don’t have people close to us dying – we just don’t deal with the specifics.  I reflected on this just a few weeks ago, when we lost our longtime family dog in India, and suddenly had
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Varanasi by Night
We finally had the opportunity to visit Varanasi, India – also known as Benares or Kashi – one of the seven holy cities of Hinduism and Jainism, and also important in the development of Buddhism. Â Varanasi, a city of 3 million on the western bank of the Ganges River, is said to be one of
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Project Underwood: Typewriter Restoration
One evening about a year ago, my (younger) daughter and I were checking out typewriters on eBay. Â We share an interest in “retro” machines (this is how my camera craze started, and her last Christmas present was a record player), and inexplicably, we both wanted –Â needed – a typewriter. Â So we both picked one out
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Found Film Friday: Only Briefly Misplaced
Every week I post a roll of “found” film that has been forgotten in someone’s attic or inside a camera, often for half a century. Â You never know what you’re going to end up with though. Â With the old spools, it’s pretty clear that the pictures will be pretty old, and often yield a few
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It’s 1914 and Everyone’s a Photo Critic
One hundred years ago this month, much of the world was at war.  But in the United States – which would eventually mobilize 4 million military personnel – public opinion in 1914 was still firmly on the side of neutrality.  This was very evident thumbing through this 100-year-old issue of “The Camera” magazine, published in Philadelphia.