As this holiday season slogs into its final act, and as we as a nation face a most uncertain 2023, I’d like to say thanks to all my Medium friends and friends and voices from other social media platforms on which I write for your many kindnesses, thoughtful comments, bird-likes…

“Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.” Ansel Adams Introduction If there is one word that amps up anxiety or conjures images of bank-breaking expenditures among millions of photographers, that word is “professional.” For as long as I’ve been a…

We will never know for certain how, when, or where the wind will blow our fortunes This morning, I received an email from a long-time friend of mine who I consider one of the most interesting, energetic, idea-birthing, entrepreneurial people I’ve known. We met some 40 years ago when we were both very idealistic federal employees in Washington, full of our own BS and self-importance. Over…

Letting go of the past; grasping the future I do not know how to improve on the future of the nation if we are so insistently wedded to the habits of the past that we refuse to release our two-handed death grip on old mottos and faded dreams. The first rule of wing-walking is to not let go…

I have long subscribed to — and attempted to live up to — the idea that the goal of journalism is to lend comfort to those in need, and to make uncomfortable those comforted by greed. Seven non-negotiables As a journalist long past his prime, I continue to hold these non-negotiable tenets…

Put the End-of-Times on hold Over the years, most of my readers on Medium, Quora, and my blogs have been patient with me when I tear off on a rant about the coming End Times or somesuch Cassandra-esque prophesy. My dour visions — unlike those of the fickle (just ask…

Ghosting the News In an upcoming Washington Post Perspective column, Post opinion writer Margaret Sullivan takes a heartfelt and hard-to-turn-away-from piece about the decline in community newspapers over the past few decades. In the article — “What America’s local news crisis means for our democracy.” Sullivan builds on a theme…

Forget the Arrow of Time and the Grandfather Paradox If I had a time machine, I’d head back in time to Southern California, arriving on February 20, 1944, at Burbank airport near of Los Angles, where a young Army Air Force pilot in the newly-minted 436th Fighter Squadron, is about to give a pretty girl a ride in a…

Grief as a dead-end or as a guide forward One of the things I learned early on as a photographer and as an artist, is the importance of applying the creative instinct when things in life go south and grief threatens to settle in. There is absolutely nothing wrong with grief — it is a fundamental ,part of human…