Welcome to PHOTALES.

I'm a photographer, and on this blog you'll see a new photograph, and the accompanying story, every week or so. Perhaps more than one photograph. Perhaps more than once a week.

I began taking photos in high school. When at 16 I watched the first image appear in a shallow tray of developing fluid - a rather striking, if I may say, portrait of a rusted old bulldozer - I was smitten. Since then I've traveled a bit, and in so doing realized that photography is perhaps the most potent force in the modern world to effect awareness of the world around us. Modern individuals, by and large, haven't the patience for text; even the most gloriously composed analysis of international affairs goes largely unread by the general populace. And yet few can forget the grainy image of a man falling to his death from the towers of the World Trade Center, the ARVN officer executing a Viet Cong fighter with a bullet to the skull, a lone, small Chinese man solidly positioned in front of a tank in Tianamen Square, the brilliant, bottomless eyes of an Afghan girl, the half-melted spectres of soldiers caught in the surf and machine gun fire on Utah Beach on D-Day.

Elliott Erwitt claimed to have learnt photography by reading the instructions on a packet of film. A teacher at my high school taught me how to develop prints and some things to keep in mind looking through the camera, but I think Erwitt meant something a little more than what he said. What he meant is that taking photos is easy. Making pictures is hard. Anyone can set their camera's dials - or let the camera do it for them - and snap away, but to capture real people in real moments: that takes patience, sensitivity, taste and talent. I can't claim to possess all those qualities in amounts comparable to Erwitt, Capa, Bresson, Bourke-White, Kessel, and so many others, but I do think I've got some of each, and I hope to do well in showcasing on this blog a bit of what I've come up with over the years.

The photos presented here were shot on one of five cameras: a Minolta X-370, a Nikon N80, a Kodak Easyshare 550, a Canon Powershot SD870, or a black plastic Holga. None of these are particularly expensive, but they've served me well. Someday, perhaps, I'll own a Leica, or a Mamiya, and play around with those wonderful square negatives. I prefer to shoot on film. I'm not averse to owning and shooting with, say, a 12 or 15 megapixel Canon with a 400mm telephoto lens that can produce a crystal clear image of a hummingbird in flight just above the sweaty, porous surface of a Burmese man's chest as he sleeps in a prison yard. If I wish to be a photojournalist I will have to buy such a camera at some point. I could shoot twelve frames in a second and review them all instantly. I could fill a 4 or 8 gigabyte card with thousands of attempts, trusting that somewhere in there is a usable image that'll sell. But for now, I like the challenge in knowing that there are only 24 or 36 chances on the roll of film, and that I'll have to wait until the negatives are developed to know if I got anything at all. There's something rather exciting in the anticipation and the fear that you may have blown it, but maybe not. Maybe you got something amazing.

Comments, reflections, shout outs, burns...anything is welcome. Burns are not quite as welcome as the other ones, but who am I to stifle free speech? For example, you could scold me for the slightly ridiculous name I picked for the blog, and that would of course be your right. And I would very likely agree with you, and hope that if you had any suggestions for an alternate title you might pass them along. Or you could point out that this little welcome message smacks of self-importance. And probably you'd have a point there, too. I'll do my best to avoid such slip-ups in the future, because if there's anything that annoys, its self-important folks who don't realize that there's more to the world than what's their small orbit. So far I've done what I can to explore beyond mine, with some success. But it's not enough. There's still plenty to see and to photograph, and the sooner I can light out for the territories, the better.

For now, though, enjoy the photos and words, and good luck.

- Ned

(The photo at the top, to kick things off, is a self-portrait in Edinburgh. I wandered off the Royal Mile to find this little hidden garden. I stuck my camera on a bit of wall, settled onto the bench, and that was that. I rather like it. If you'd like to find the garden, it's just across from a Starbucks on the lower reaches of the Mile, if I recall correctly.)