i like to travel

I especially like airborne travel. When I was little, there was always the slightly unpleasant thrill (not unlike a good, dark fairy tale) of looking upon the world from on high—the treachery of unimpeded sunlight, the curious and haunting spectacle of stars framing the moon over a bed of clouds, the violence of lightning erupting below me rather than above me.

These days I mostly sleep on airplanes. The old adage, "getting there is half the fun" is bullshit, I've come to believe. But any given destination can still hold promise. Stepping out of one's native environment can be a good remedy for complacency.

i also like to take photographs

I have no formal training. I enrolled in a photography class during the fall of my sophomore year in college but I didn't count on spending most of my time in a poorly lit lab surrounded by toxic chemicals: fixers, silver halide, red room, red room—no thanks.

I also despise schlepping around cumbersome electronic equipment when I'm traveling. So no Nikon with a phallic lens for me. I usually just use your standard point-and-shoot—albeit a nice point-and-shoot, but a point-and-shoot nevertheless. Say it with me: point—and—shoot.

I have a digital camera, but that's mostly for fooling around with. Proper photography is still a filmic medium, as far as I'm concerned.

I like to use black-and-white film. It distracts from the fact that I have no formal training. My photography is okay. My friends seem to like it. Of course, that may just be because they're my friends. Go figure. Although I will say that my friends are never in any of my photographs. I don't like photographing people I know. It always comes out forced, pretentious, posed, or—horrors—just plain ugly. Quirky in the worst way.

see what develops

On the left you'll find links to my "photographic travel essays" from 2000 onwards. I've posted older photos online during past incarnations of my web presence, but trust me, they suck (at least in hindsight). New links will appear concomitantly with my time-zone-hopping exploits—and qualified only by my laziness.