I haven’t been able to travel much for a while now due to Covid and I miss Paris. I looked through some old photos I have yet to share and am sharing two photos from 2015. They are both views of Paris from the Centre Pompidou. I hope to visit later this year.

I want to give a shout out to Peak Design’s iPhone case and Mobile Tripod. The iPhone case feels great in my hand and has a very strong magnet. The Mobile Tripod folds up small but provides a sturdy base for making photos and videos and proping up an iPhone when you want to watch videos or just read or check emails. I love them both. They are well made and work as described.

I have tried other iPhone tripods but ended up not using them either because they were too bulky or cumbersome. This tripod to me is just right.

Hundreds of Ukrainians and their supporters gathered near The White House on Sunday, February 27, 2022 to protest Russia’s invasion of the country and to demand a stronger response from the United States. The protesters were peaceful. The police were very friendly.

Many motorists honked their car horns in support as they passed by. It wasn’t the 100,000 who marched in Berlin. Nonetheless, I was moved by the experience.

The Holodomor Memorial to Victims of the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide of 1932–1933 was opened in Washington, D.C. on November 7, 2015. Congress approved creation of the Holodomor Memorial in 2006.

The Holodomor was a famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. It was a man-made famine engineered by the Soviet government of Joseph Stalin. Holodomor is term derived from the Ukrainian words for hunger (holod) and extermination (mor).

The memorial was built by the National Park Service and the Ukrainian government to honor the victims of the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide of 1932–33 and to educate the American public.

The memorial, designed by Larysa Kurylas, is one of three monuments in Washington, D.C., designed or co-designed by women—the others being the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial.

The memorial is located near the U.S. Capitol building at the intersection of North Capitol Street, Massachusetts Avenue, and F Street N.W. It is diagonal to the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum, about one block from Union Station.

You can read more in Atlas Obsura.

This tragedy is not well known in the United States and I imagine elsewhere. Ukraine - a country of some 43 million people - has not had an easy history.

A big snow day in Washington. Yesterday it was 60 degrees F!

On December 18, 2021, nearly 38,000 people showed up to place 257,000 wreaths at every gravesite, columbarium court column and niche wall column at Arlington National Cemetery. This year marked a full return to the event, after Arlington’s volunteer wreath-laying ceremony was canceled in 2020 due to pandemic restrictions. The 2021 commemoration began on Friday with Gold Star families visiting the National Mall in Washington D.C., to lay wreaths across the Vietnam, Korean, World War I, and World War II memorials.

Every time I pick up my camera, I forget the time and everyday life. The camera and the pictures take me to another world. I concentrate on the moment and try to get the best out of that very moment, the conditions, the subject, the location, the light and so on.

Patrik Seiler

Today, I discovered a bug in Photoshop. I ran Smart Sharpen on a photo and ended up with a vertical line in the photo. Adobe reports that this is a Monterey specific bug. Adobe is working on it. Other sharpening methods work without problem.

I recently upgraded my 15 inch 2018 MacBook Pro which has 32 GB of RAM and a 2.6 GHz 6-Core i7 processor. I use the laptop mainly with Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. I don’t do anything more taxing. I bought a 16 inch MacBook Pro M1 Max with 64 GB of RAM.

I noticed a major speed improvement right away. I have one large Lightroom Catalogue with many collections and smart collections. On the 2018 MacBook Pro, the smart collections have been slow to load. On the new machine they are sometimes instantaneous and sometimes very quick. The difference is dramatic. Editing in Lightroom is quick and responsive. Photoshop handles large files quickly and easily.

The screen is amazing. I see detail I did not see before. Some photos that I thought were in focus now seem slightly out of focus. The dynamic range is wonderful. This is the best screen I have ever seen.The keyboard is very nice. The built in speakers are louder than I expected on a laptop. It’s early days but so far I love the new M1 Max. Apple really delivered.

The Four Seasons hotel in Georgetown opened in 1979, the year I moved to Washington. It is a beautiful property with outstanding service.

Paris is a city I have loved for over 40 years. About six years ago, I stumbled across Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light. The author, David Downie, is an American who has lived in Paris since 1986. He loves Paris deeply and knows it far better than I do.

Downie likes to walk. His book is divided into “Paris People”, “Paris Places” and “Paris Phenomena.” It is the places that interested me the most. For example, Downie describes a long walk along the Seine that I decided to replicate. It transformed my view of Paris because I learned how much of the city revolves around the river. I also learned just how small the city is geographically and how it seems that almost every centimeter of the city has been lovingly cultivated.

The walk begins at France’s gigantic national library — Bibliothèque nationale de France. This is the largest library I have ever seen; it houses 15 million books and journals. It is located near the Métro station Bibliothèque François Mitterrand right along the Seine. But not much else is nearby. The location feels desolate, modern and suburban, although the library remains within Paris’s Périphérique or beltway.

However, it was unclear to me from reading the book where the walk ended so I emailed the author who cheerfully responded with the details and even suggested a nice, reasonably priced restaurant for lunch right along the walk. The restaurant is La Fregate and is at the only spot on the walk where you have to go up to the sidewalk from the river.

I watched the city transform from stark, modern suburbs and eventually came upon Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower and on to its terminus at the Pont Mirabeau. I will never forget Le Pont Mirabeau after reading Guillaume Apollinaire’s poem in high school breathing life and love into the bridge. Seeing Le Pont Mirabeau at the end of this day-long walk was special.

The entire walk was about 10 km or 6.2 miles. The transformations within that short distance speak volumes about Paris.

At Downie’s suggestion, I also visited Buttes-Chaumont park which is even more impressive than Mr. Downie describes. He knows Place des Voges like the back of his hand so that chapter is exceptional.

On top of the wonderful details that make Paris come to life, Downie’s prose shows a love and mastery of the English language that I appreciate. This gem of a book will teach you so much about Paris and make you want to return again and again or just to go to Paris and remain as Downie has.

You can see more of my photos of Paris here

Om explains why he no longer posts on Instagram¹:

And then there is Instagram, which I have given up for Lent. I must say, it is quite a relief to not be looking at all those other photos and perfect lives. It is great to not think about where I could be, and instead be grateful for where I am. I have been walking around town looking for images and then sharing them on my own blog or with friends over iMessage. There have been discussions on the relative merits and demerits of certain photos. It is incredibly refreshing to actually get a conversation instead of a “heart.”

But the best part of not being on IG is the absence of influencers and ads selling me substandard shit. I’ll admit that I have fallen prey to ads promising gold (actually, no-show socks and joggers) that turned out to be utter crap. I have ended up ordering USB cables that are just horrible. But I’ve learned my lesson: I don’t trust anything being advertised on Instagram and peddled by influencers. And I’m glad to be rid of them.