Art flourishes in downtown Greensboro.





Restless traveler | nonprofit exec | writer & photographer
My neighbors from more than six feet away.
Drone footage from a quiet Saturday afternoon in downtown Greensboro.
Earlier this year I collaborated with JDRF to create a video that highlights the type of people who ride and fundraise to support research into treating, preventing and curing type one diabetes. The video has been playing at JDRF Ride events this year, and I’m now able to make it available online.
“Paris is a museum,” said the Paris-based filmmaker I’d been chatting with over beers.
Look beyond the monuments, museums, tourist traps, and other obvious must-sees and there’s vibrant everyday life. It may be a museum, but the people behind the scenes are fascinating to watch. It’s all about choosing your perspective.
2025 update: My GR bit the dust.
2024 update: My GR seems to be slowly dying, and the decision that’s on the horizon is, replace it or go for the GRIIIx, which has the 35mm equivalent of a 40mm lens. I’m straddling the fence on this one.
Let’s get this out of the way: There is no one, perfect travel camera. There’s only the best camera that works for you. Or in this case, the one that works best for me. First, some history.
I’ve shot with SLRs and DSLRs for about 40 years. In 2010 I traveled to the UK with a bag of Nikon bodies and lenses. I was shooting for a client, but I also carried that gear as I walked around London on my own. The images were good; the experience was miserable.
Three years later I was packing for a trip to Paris and looked at my big bag of gear. I remembered lugging it around for two weeks. Instead, I packed my Ricoh GR and two spare batteries.
The Ricoh GR, if you’re not familiar with it, is a wonder camera. For some people. It has an APS-C sensor (the same size you’ll find in many DSLRs), and a range of features that allow users to focus on making great images. The lens is a fixed 18.3 mm f2.8 (28 mm equivalent) that encourages getting closer to subjects. It also fits in a pocket. And that’s all I carried for a week and a half in Paris. You can see a few of the results below.
Since then, I’ve flirted with other cameras. My Fuji X100T often travels with me (and is a much better camera in marginal light), but I keep gravitating back to the Ricoh GR that’s been in my collection for five years. Here’s why:
The GR has always been a cult camera, so much so that Ricoh periodically sighs (as much as a corporation can) and admits that there are enough photographers in love with the GR that it deserves an upgrade. The latest version is similar to mine, other than the addition of WiFi connectivity. But, there’s a Ricoh GRIII due early 2019 that’s going to be smaller and have a higher resolution sensor. The perfect camera, for me, might become more perfect.