Looking Backward

8/1/04: Looking back at what I’ve done so far this year, I see a turn away from the ironic, too-good-to-be-true, realer-than-real, overcolored photos that were becoming my stock in trade. I'm not much interested in stock photos, so for much of my work I've moved back to tiresome black-and-white. Also I began making trips to local tourist spots – zoos, museums, even Coney Island and Grant’s Tomb. If you want a peg to hang that on, think of the haibun travel diaries of the haiku poet Matsuo Basho. (A quick Web search shows me that other photographers have borrowed the same word. Why not? It fits.