I wrote before about my trip to New York City to visit my friends Amy and Matt, although I can’t believe this was now 10 years ago! Time flies, and it feels like just yesterday that we were wandering Times Square looking for photo opportunities. I found this scene on Broadway and 46th (in the same area as the Statue of Liberty photo I posted before) on an evening when Times Square was buzzing and alive with summertime tourists.

I wrote in the past about my 2011 visit to Page, Arizona to visit the famed slot canyons. These are among the most beautiful spots in the American southwest, and I enjoyed every minute of our trip. This photo was taken one day after the one I shared before, this time in nearby Lower Antelope Canyon. Like the previous day, the weather was still dreary, but that didn’t stop me from finding some great shots.

During this period of pandemic lockdown, and as the weather has begun to warm, I’ve started smoking meat again on my backyard Weber grill. Being a good Texan, I’ve loved eating smoked meat ever since I was a little kid. One of my grandfathers was a tremendous home chef who enjoyed smoking everything from fish to game, while my other grandfather was a master of pit barbecue, delivering up extraordinary chickens that I still haven’t been able to recreate. When I lived in Austin (and later San Antonio), I fell hard for the central Texas barbecue belt – eating at places like Smitty’s and Kreuz Market whenever I had the time to pop down to Lockhart. So yesterday, as I was smoking meat in my own backyard, I remembered this photo from a visit to Kreuz in 2014.

One of the nice things about reposting some of my old photos is that I get to take a second look at them. Most of the time I like them the way they are. They reflect my style at a period in time, and messing with them seems less productive than working on new stuff that reflects my style now. But every once in a while I think “I can improve on this,” and that’s what I’ve done with this photo from Upper Antelope Canyon in Page, Arizona. I originally took this photo on a trip in 2011, and you can see how it looked when I originally published it over on Flickr. However, eight years later, I want to make some tweaks.

In 2011 we took a trip to the Peak District to see some of the UK’s most spectacularly beautiful countryside. While we were there, we also made a stop at the amazing Chatsworth House where we took a self-guided tour of the house and the grounds. Chatsworth is one of the most famous houses in England (having been used in a variety of television shows and movies you’ve probably heard of), and while the entire house is incredible, I was especially wowed by this breathtaking library.