On this blog you will find thoughts on art with an emphasis on fine-art photography as well as reflections on the world as I find it…also examples of my photography and occasional articles in the ‘pages’ section.

This is the third excavation of the Salt Mine. The first was a putative blog that didn’t know it was a blog, written from England in 2001-2, and featuring photographs and writings on photography. The second was my website (2005) which didn’t feel particularly personal so i replaced with this blog, the third Salt Mine, reborn as a blog cum website, and hopefully this will the fit that works the best.

I can do no less, seeing that even my children and yes, even two grandchildren, have their own blogs, notably my grandson Jashan, and my daughter, Shelagh. Now it appears another daughter, Nani, is about to launch her own blog - soon the only sound heard from this family will the click-clacking of many keyboards all going at once.

In the interim between excavations, I began a private blog in 2006. I did it privately so I could say what I wanted about people in my life without offending them. But the likelihood that it would stay private, that is to say, unread, and ipso facto, inoffensive as well, began to make the journal ( as I archaically called it)  a lonely place to be. There’s something about writing words you know will only be read after you’re dead has a certain chilling effect - and then there’s always the likelihood that they won’t be read at all, and then its not so much a chill as an experiential feeling of the uselessness of it all!

So now a blog and the one thing I don’t need in my dotage, and that is another learning curve! This digital age is enticing, not to mention seductive, but it stretches the aging brain cells with its constant demand for creating new synapses, new linkages in the neurons which have been fitfully flashing for some decades now. Recently I had to re-learn how to use a computer because I made the switch from a PC to an Apple iMac. A topic I suppose which deserves its own posting so I’ll ignore it for now (and maybe forever!).

So welcome to the Salt Mine and I look forward to your visits!

Mark