Portland's Northeast Alberta Neighborhood

Yesterday we continued our project of exploring our new home city of Portland, Oregon, by walking on the main commercial street of the NE Alberta neighborhood. It's somewhat counter-cultural in a way reminiscent of the 1960s, and filled with colorful signs and murals. Here are a few examples. The first one sums up a significant aspect of the Portland ethos in the most succinct way possible.

I'm going to try to augment (hopefully, enrich) this blog by writing occasionally about some photo topics that I find noteworthy. One of the photo sites I look at daily is A Photo Editor. Its content rotates among contributors during the week, but Friday is often the most interesting. It's written by a fine art photographer named Jonathan Blaustein, and generally consists of his comments - with copious illustrations - on contemporary photobooks.

Today's column struck me as particularly worthwhile. Blaustein begins with ruminations on the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the role of images in inflaming fanatics. He then segues into comments on the work of five photographers, whose work he was reviewing for Photo NOLA. The photos, all quite different, are very moving and interesting. All in all, a fine sampling of the riches and implications of contemporary photography.