Penultimate Sunset

 12/30/2025, the next-to-last sunset of 2025...

It's been a pretty good year, looking forward to 2026!

That sense of moving through the world slowly

 I continue to play around with ChatGPT, and while sometimes it is simply stupid, there are times when it seems insightful.  Or at least it has learned to flatter me!

This evening, I uploaded a couple of photos from 1977/1978, and asked for analysis.  But also: "I'm especially interested to how the fit with my current esthetic, 50+ years later."

Here's what it said:  

Overall Impression: How These Fit Your Current Aesthetic (50+ years later)

The through-line is unmistakable:

1. You’ve always photographed at walking speed.

That sense of moving through the world slowly — observing, not chasing — is present in both early images and fully matured now.

2. You gravitate to edges, thresholds, liminal spaces.

A forest path. A guitar half in shadow, half in glare. A riverbank. A fading street corner. A parking lot at dusk. Different subjects, same intuition.

3. Your work has always been about presence, not performance.

You don’t photograph spectacle; you photograph the quiet friction between people (or objects, or landscapes) and their surroundings.

4. Over time, you’ve distilled your approach

1977: gentle narrative, more literal.

2025: distilled, minimal, leaning toward metaphor — but the soul is the same.

⭐ If anything, these early shots show that your current aesthetic isn’t a reinvention — it’s a refinement.

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So, what do y'all think?  Insightful, or soul-less BS?

Here's the photos, they've been published here before:

Looking Back...

 

About a week left in 2025, and I'm a bit ahead of usual on reviewing my 2025 photos.  I'll be doing a "Good Crop" post, and a YouTube video.  Stay tuned!

This photo is from my fun little Chuzhao mini-camera, using the b&w setting.  Only minor clean up in Lr

Not so Green-Space

 Glen Carbon Greenspace North, behind Schon Park.  Not so green on the 23rd day of December.  But it was mid 60's on the 2nd (or 3rd?) day of winter, so I'm not complaining!

A Good Crop 2023 - Video Photo Essay

 Yep, another "Good Crop" video has been published!!  This one looks back at 2022... I've been doing Good Crop yearly look-backs for several year, only recently started dong Youtube videos.  I'd be honored if you were to check them out, let me know what you think!!  

I've been working on 2025's Good Crop for a few days now, plan to have it posted around January 1.  Stay tuned!!

A Good Crop - 2022

To see something ordinary

" To see something ordinary, something you’d see every day, and recognize it as a photographic possibility – that’s what I’m interested in."

Stephen Shore

Photo is mine, not Stephen Shore...

A Good Crop 2023 - Video Photo Essay

 I noticed today, that I had never posted here about my most recent "A Good Crop" photo essay!  This one if for 2023.  So here goes:

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Yep, I've made another video essay.  Regular readers (hopefully) know about the ongoing "A Good Crop" series, reflecting back on my 12 favorite photos from each year.  If not, check it out here.

Anyway, I made a Youtube video for the 2023 edition, will probably make similar videos for the other years.  Check it out, comments welcome:

2023 - A Good Crop

t is my intention to keep doing these.  In fact, the 2022 version is ready to post to YouTube, and the 2025 "A Good Crop" is in progress (and will hopefully be ready in early January).  If people stay interested, I have "A Good Crop" sets going back to 2012.

So, enjoy, share, comment...  all that good stuff!

Chuzhao Camera

 My wife got me a new toy this week, a CHUZHAO Digital Camera,  A fun little point and shoot, marketed as a Portable Vintage Camera.  Did I mention it is small?  Because it is tiny.  Very basic, point 'n' shoot, no frills or fancy.  I've been having fun playing with it, though the weather has been COLD the past few days.  Here's a couple of the first photos, with minimal tweaking in LrC (Lightroom Classic).

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This won't be replacing my Fujifilm Compact Digitals (X-T3 and X-T4), nor my iPhone, but is another toy for my arsenal!