Blog
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In Three Acts
Yesterday, I recently participated in a UNICO trip to see Madame Butterfly, an Opera by Puccini in three acts which tells the story of an American sailor, Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, whom marries a Geisha wife in Japan before leaving her to return to America and…marry again. He returns 3 years later only to find Madame…
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Ocean Grove
Ocean Grove is a community in Neptune, New Jersey originally formed in the mid-late 1800s by Methodist ministers as a religious retreat location for parishioners…or as they called it then…a camp meeting community. It is the one of the longest active communities of its type in the United States. What is a “camp meeting community,”…
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Color Me Impressed
Two streams of conscience at once. Can there be such a thing? Reading some notes I made in Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes, one note from the margin stands out in particular, “the onslaught of photos is creating a world of indifference rather than reacting to it – thereby preventing the photographer to escape it…
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The Artist and the Architect
A casually dressed man sits in Piazza Santo Stefano, legs crossed, with a sketchbook and soft pencil in hand. His provenance unknown, he strikes the observer as a gentlemen of leisure, perhaps a professional, perhaps an architect. His gaze is a study by which one determines proportions, angles and horizon. His pencil moves deliberately, with…
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The Rawness of It All
After using the Bf for about 2.5 months exclusively in JPEG mode I decided it was time to try it with RAW files. With this kind of endeavor comes the need to critically evaluate my use of the software and its results. The magic with RAW is the software conversion and photographer’s processing. When making…
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Building Bridges
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”- Rita Mae Brown Recently I have been culling through old photos and came to the conclusion that my photography, and its subjects, hasn’t dramatically changed in the past 10 years. It’s as if I am a mad man,…
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Architectural Vulnerability
by James V October 24, 2020 Urban architecture has always fascinated me. From when I was eight years old, I dreamed of designing a high rise. I still do and the ideas for one continuously gestate in my mind. I wanted green terraces in the late 1980’s, floating in the middle of a skyscraper. Actually,…
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NYC Street Portraits
Technically flawed, spontaneously captured, “run and gun,” trying to keep up with the hustle and bustle. I present those that visit, those that work and those that live…in NYC. December 2025 All images taken with the Sigma Bf camera and Sigma 45mm 2.8 lens.
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Quantum Photography
by James V (originally from October 31, 2020) Forward (Present Day) My initial paragraph is lost from this post. In a nutshell, I was reading and exploring the photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson, whom, among other talents, was a famous street photographer from the 20th century. What I find interesting is the ability of HCB’s photos…
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Ten Minutes in Two Places
(From October 25, 2020) Edgewater, NJ 2020 Sometimes we have had an urge to go out and capture an image. Midday light? Too cloudy? Little content? Familiar, mundane surroundings? I refused to capitulate to the gods of indifference and thought about emphasis on perspective, color or composition. It didn’t go well. I have recently begun…
