Tag Archives: photography

Looking at Florida with a Leica

Took a new dig­i­tal Leica (Huawei Mate) to Flori­da for dri­ve­bys & still shots.

It’s a smart­phone, and smart­phones are now the only kind of dig­i­tal cam­era I use — the oth­er is an old iPhone, which I use with Hipstamatic.

The phone’s dual lens cam­era with all-man­u­al set­tings had much promise. And these images do, admit­ted­ly, get the “Leica look.” It’s also there to get shots I’d nor­mal­ly miss, because I keep the phone with me all the time.

How­ev­er, there’s still some­thing unsat­is­fy­ing to me about most dig­i­tal imagery. Look­ing at the results after­ward, I real­ize that I still pre­fer film over this. And Hip­sta­mat­ic on an old iPhone is just about the only dig­i­tal cam­era tech that can do it for me …

Treasure Island Redux

Trea­sure Island, Flori­da and its envi­rons is one of the best hotbeds of mid-cen­tu­ry mod­ern archi­tec­ture in America—right on the Gulf of Mex­i­co, about a mile from Jack Ker­ouac’s last home, was an exam­ple of every major archi­tec­tur­al style and trend from Amer­i­ca’s high point.

In an effort to bring aware­ness to what they had, years ago I got Trea­sure Island on the front page of The New York Times. They did­n’t get it then, even as the nation­al spot­light was thrown upon them.

I’ve been mak­ing some trips down there to doc­u­ment what’s left, and I’ve become hap­pi­ly sur­prised by some­thing else: there’s new inter­est and hope in his­toric preser­va­tion. Now that mid-cen­tu­ry mod­ern is so hot, this might be a very good year for the city.

Tropic Terrace

The Sands

A Visit From the Time Ghost

the time ghost

I spoke with William S. Bur­roughs a few times in the final years of his life. I miss him, and recent­ly I was shocked but hap­py to hear his voice again — it was com­ing out of the pages of Dostoyevsky.

Yes, I’ve been think­ing of Bur­roughs late­ly, and I’ve encoun­tered him, and I’ve been think­ing about many oth­er things that are appear­ing, too.

First pub­lished in Got­News as “A Vision From the Time Ghost.”