A Thousand Words (or More?)

A picture is worth...how many Substack words? How about ten photos? Well, with enough encouragement, I just might do this regularly.

Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including “The Tunnels,“ Atomic Cover-up,” and the recent “The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood—and America—Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” His film “Atomic Cover-up” just debuted on PBS and you can watch here. And “Memorial Day Massacre: Workers Die, Film Buried" remains free on the PBS site. Both have companion books, which you can easily find at Amazon.

To date, my longstanding passion for politics, for movies and documentary films, for music (from rock ‘n roll to Beethoven), even for editorial cartoons, has been much in evidence in this newsletter over the past three years, and via my Oppenheimer/atomic history/nuclear threat Substack launched last July to coincide with release of the Christopher Nolan movie.

Now I’m tempted to exercise one of my other passions, photography (usually my own, but with famous guests from time to time), as a weekly feature here at Between Rock and a Hard Place. Of course, I will only do this if enough of you express some firm interest. Or I could launch a new, photo-only newsletter, if that seemed preferable.

I know this is a lot to ask, as many folks may be happy with current content choices here at the existing newsletter. But I thought I’d ask, here at the start of the New Year where real world news and music is only building slowly.

So, if I do this, it would be just once a week, and most often would highlight my own images (from around the USA and several foreign outposts) organized around locales or subjects or themes. A sample below. But every month I might also pay tribute to some of the greats—i.e. Paul Strand, Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Diane Arbus, James Hamilton, and so on. And, of course, you might be able to purchase a print of any of my images that knocks you out.

If this interests you at all just hit the “like” button or “comment” or send an email. Otherwise this will be a one-off. Thanks for considering. First, a couple of olde Kinks songs: “People Take Pictures of Each Other” and “Picture Book,” plus the inevitable Paul Simon “Kodachrome.” And you can still subscribe to this newsletter for free.

At Sunset, Around the World

Sedona, AZ

Manhattan

Venice

Provincetown, MA

On the Hudson, off Piermont, Snowy Owl, very rarely seen in these parts

Paris, from roof of Musee D’Orsay

Berlin

Bodega, CA (homage to Ansel Adams)

Taos, N.M. (San Francisco de Asis Church)

From Nyack, NY

From Mohonk, upstate NY, looking toward Catskills.

Now let me know you think….