No explorer with backpack and camera in hand can escape the consequences of the decisions they have made. Two shining examples are Edmund Hillary or perhaps the Donner party. My team and I know the axiom ‘Fortune favors the bold', as we have all been tested by the elements. My current team and I came together in Japan, and we have spent over 20 years together … [Read more...]
The Shoguns & Nikko – How three Samurai shaped Japan
Nikko was founded in the 8th century by Shodo Shonin, a Zen Buddhist monk before there was any bakufu or shogun in Japan. The first shogun was Minamoto Yoritomo, appointed by the emperor, Go-Toba, on August 21, 1192. Although the emperor officially remained the head of the nation by title, Minamoto Yoritomo was responsible for overseeing the day to day welfare … [Read more...]
The Holocaust Memorial Berlin By Gerry Phillipson with Editors note.
Editor's note: I was trawling the often toxic environs of the internet this morning before even getting out of bed (always a mistake). I came across the eventual and usual cross-section of vitriol and rhetoric. Much of it turns to conspiracy of all types. Some of which I find useful, much of which is a dead-end. One can always count on Jew-hate when we dig down just a little … [Read more...]
The camera as a tool for exploring the world.
An ordinary-sized human being (Apple’s Phil Schiller) with an enormous iPhone looming over him. A Phase One XT – a camera for contemplation and exploration. There was exciting new tool for photographic art released on September 10, 2019. It is perhaps the most contemplative digital camera I have yet seen – manual focus only, uncompromising resolution, shift as an … [Read more...]
Of Tools and Art
Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico by Ansel Adams – one of the trickiest images to print in existence – the best of silver gelatin printing, in the hands of a master, is barely good enough. As any art form matures, tools become first good enough, then much better than good enough, and we can come to first develop the techniques to use those tools to their fullest capability, … [Read more...]
