it’s just a few fingers

Posted on October 31, 2025 by greg

Every few weeks Bsky has this…I can’t call it a discussion or an argument, because it’s neither of those things. Even calling a discourse doesn’t quite fit, because that term refers to a serious conversation–and while the subject is very very serious, it’s not a conversation. In a conversation, both sides (all sides) are attempting to communicate. This is about folks repeating their positions on the subject.

The subject is voting. The positions, essentially, are as follows:

Vote for the Democrat even if they suck on a particular issue, because they’re still infinitely better than the Republican.
I will not vote for somebody who opposes an issue that is central to my life.

The argument made folks in the first category is pretty simple: “I know your situation is precarious. I know you’re just barely holding on. I feel your pain. But you belong to a small subset of the voting population. In order to effect change, we have to first win the election. After we’ve done that, we can see about improving your situation.”

The argument made by folks in the second category is even more simple: “This is my life. I won’t vote for somebody who will make my life more difficult than it already is.”

Sorry, I hope you understand that I have to do this to win the election.

The counter-argument by the first category is: “To get elected, we may have to cause you some minor inconvenience. You may end up with a bruised finger. At worst, you’ll lose a finger. Maybe two. But the Republicans will happily chop off both your hands. Which is worse?”

The counter-counter-argument is: “I shouldn’t have to settle for which is worse. I want better. I deserve better. I won’t vote for a candidate who thinks I should settle for which is worse. I’ll only vote for a candidate who offers me better.”

The counter-counter-counter-argument is: “Refusing to vote for the Democrat guarantees you a future of being handless. If you vote for the Democrat, you’ll at least have the chance that eventually, at some vague point in the future, you’ll get some prosthetic fingers. If you’re patient, there’ll probably be a time when you’ll never have to worry about losing any of your appendages.”

The counter-etc. argument is: “Even if I vote for the Democrat, I’ll lose some fingers and maybe fall to my death. You’ll be sitting inside, safe and whole. You want my vote, give me a candidate who’ll protect my right to keep my hands. Give me a candidate who’ll take my hand and help me through the window. Give me a candidate who’ll welcome me into the room. Until then, nope.”

The thing is, both of those folks are right. They’re just not talking about the same thing. The folks in category 1 are concerned about winning elections, and it’s true that you can’t effect change unless you win elections. But the folks in category 2 are concerned about their survival and the survival of their people. Winning an election only matters to folks who get to survive.

I’m a cisgender hetero white guy. I recognize that I’ll probably be mostly safe, regardless of who wins. I’ll vote for the Democrat. But I’ll work for and support candidates who respect everybody’s civil rights. And I won’t fault or blame anybody who refuses to vote for a candidate who’s willing to chop off a few marginalized fingers, even if it means a Republican gets elected.

EDITORIAL NOTE: We must burn the patriarchy to the ground. We need to burn it, gather the ashes, piss on them, douse them in oil, and set them on fire again. Then drive a stake directly through the ashes where its heart used to be. Then set fire to the stake. Burn it and keep burning it for generations. Then nuke it from orbit (you know why). Then open a semi-dry Riesling and serve it with a nice Emmental cheese and some crackers. I mean, we’re not savages, are we.

Other Editorial Note: The illustration is by Sidney Paget, for the short story The Engineer’s Thumb in the 1892 edition of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

needless death on the high trestle trail

Posted on October 16, 2025 by greg

I ride the High Trestle Trail a few times a year. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. The HTT trailhead is about a mile from where I live. The trail itself is 25 miles long, but it’s linked with the approximately 100 miles of dedicated intra-city bike paths, so even if I just ride around town, I’m often on some section of that trail.

Like a lot of Rails-to-Trails bicycle paths, the HTT tends to be long and straight. Once it leaves the city limits, there’s a long stretch that runs through flat, open farmland. We’re talking corn and soybean fields, which means there’s nothing to protect you from the sun and the wind. And the wind can be brutal. The section of the HTT is great for folks who (unlike me) ride road bikes for fitness or exercise; they can put their heads down and fly.

That’s the section of the HTT where I usually saw Corey Petersen. I didn’t know her; I’ve never spoken to her, but I’ve seen her several times. We’ve shared waves and head-nods the way cyclists do. I didn’t know she was a Marine Corps veteran, but it doesn’t surprise me. Anybody who rides a hand-cycle on a trail known for wind is a bad-ass.

You’ll notice I’m speaking in the past tense. Corey Petersen was killed a week ago while cycling on the HTT (please watch the news video). She was hit by a truck while crossing a busy country road. I’ve always hated that particular intersection. It’s a sharp turn, so you have to slow down. Worse, the trail is designed to make you ride parallel to the busy road, so you have to look back over your shoulder for oncoming traffic behind you. Even worse, there’s a low hill on the road, which limits a driver’s visibility just before the trail crossing. And to make it still worse, the speed limit on that road is 55mph, and many vehicles are traveling above the speed limit.

The intersection where Corey Petersen was killed.

It’s a badly-designed, dangerous crossing. It was almost certainly designed by somebody who didn’t understand how bicycles operate. It’s a car-brained design. It’s dangerous enough for folks on regular bikes; for anybody riding a recumbent bike or hand-cycle, which are lower to the ground and much less visible, it’s significantly more dangerous. Although I’ve personally never had a close call there, I’ve been on group rides and witnessed close calls with members of my group.

We don’t know all the facts that led to Corey Petersen’s death. The driver of the truck may have been traveling at the legal speed limit; he may have been paying attention to the road, he may have done everything right…but a vehicle traveling at 55mph covers about 80 feet in a second. At most, a driver cresting the small hill in the road would have 4-5 seconds to respond to a cyclist crossing the road. At most, 4-5 seconds. Make that a recumbent bike, which would be more difficult to see…make that a hand-cycle, which has less immediate torque…and you have a tragedy. Even if the driver is doing everything right. And let’s be honest, how many drivers are doing everything right?

This is a hand-cycle. Cyclist ‘pedal’ with their hands. It’s very low to the ground.

The High Trestle Trail draws a lot of cyclists. The Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation estimates that, on average, around 3000 people ride some section of the trail every week. A popular (and economically important) bicycle trail is an asset to the State and to the towns along the trail. There is absolutely NO reason for such a dangerous crossing to exist on that trail. Granted, the HTT was opened in 2011, but that means they’ve had 14 years to fix a known problem.

There is a petition to make that intersection safer. Please consider signing it.

Back in 1896, the journalist Nellie Bly interviewed Susan B. Anthony. The subject of cycling came up during the interview. This is Anthony’s take on cycling:

Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel. It gives a woman a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. It makes her feel as if she were independent. The moment she takes her seat she knows she can’t get into harm unless she gets off her bicycle, and away she goes, the picture of free, untrammelled womanhood.

Cycling clearly meant something to Corey Petersen. I can’t speak for her, but I know that being on a bike gives me a sense of freedom and joy. I’m confident Corey felt something similar. I wish ‘she can’t get into harm unless she gets off her bicycle‘ was true.

Sadly, it’s not.

weird and normal

Posted on October 12, 2025 by greg

The great and horrible thing about people is that they’re unpredictable; they do weird shit in ways that seem normal and normal shit that in ways that seem weird. If you’re on the street and you have a camera, you can sometimes photograph moments that are both weird and normal at the same time.

Yesterday I spent a short time at an autumn festival in a small Iowa town. It was about what you’d expect: locals and visitors milling about, some music, kids playing, adults trying to be patient with kids playing, old folks enjoying the mild chaos without having to be responsible for anybody, booths selling baked goods (I brought home a delicious apple cinnamon cream cheese coffee cake, which I’m eating as I write this), fresh local veggies, craft goods, displays by local artists, hot and cold beverages (I bought a cup of hard apple-pineapple cider that must have had an ABV of around 10%), tee shirts, decorative gourds, etc, There are usually some decent opportunities for candid photos at festivals like this.

There was a young woman I assumed to be Mennonite since she wore a classic white kapp and black clothing. There are a lot of Amish and Mennonite communities in small Iowa towns, and I think it’s important as a photographer to be sensitive about both when and why you photograph them. In my opinion, it’s okay to photograph them as people, but not as specimens–if that makes sense. I think it’s also okay to photograph them as compositional elements, in much the same way you might photograph a person in a bright red bonnet or wearing yellow shoes (as in the photo at the top of this blog). But it’s NOT okay to photograph them for being different or in a way that treats their clothing as a costume. It’s NOT okay to photograph them as ‘weird’.

This young woman was standing beside a booth decorated in large, deep reddish-brown leaves, which made her white kapp pop out beautifully. But there was a lamp post with a ‘No Parking’ sign directly behind her, which detracted from the scene. So I started to shift position in the hope of getting a better composition. As I moved, I saw another women start to pass behind her. That lizard part of your brain that tells you to do something before your brain actually processes it took over and I snapped a quick shot as I moved. Here’s that shot.

Unfortunately, I never did get the shot I wanted; other people got in the way. But that’s what happens on the street. You either get the shot or you don’t. I moved on and didn’t give the moment another thought. Until I got home and looked at the photos.

At first glance, the quick shot of the young Mennonite woman wasn’t particularly interesting to me. If anything, it was the sort of photograph I don’t want to take…a ‘normal’ person and a ‘weird’ person. But then I noticed the expression on the face of the woman passing behind her.

I can’t quite figure out what to make of that expression. It’s disapproving, to be sure. But beyond that, I just don’t know. Is she merely displeased by the woman’s clothing/beliefs? Is she outraged, or repelled? Is she offended by the presence of the Mennonite woman or her clothing? Is she being intolerant of religious differences?

It’s entirely possible she wasn’t looking at the the young Mennonite woman at all, that she was looking at something beyond her. But I don’t think so. What is that woman thinking, what is she feeling? And why am I letting it bother me?

In any event, it occurred to me that the ‘normal’ woman in this photograph was being weird and the ‘weird’ woman was being normal. Which made the photo more interesting to me. But because I tend to overthink things, I have to wonder if a photographer feels it’s necessary to explain why a photograph is interesting…is it really interesting? I don’t know.

But I know I’m glad I took the shot. And I’m glad I wrote about it. Because now I can let it go.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Let me once again sing the praises of the Ricoh GR3X. I took this shot while moving and carrying a plastic cup 2/3 full of apple-pineapple hard cider. I was able to turn on the camera, make a quick aperture change to enlarge the depth of field, and press the shutter release, all within a quick moment and with only one hand. Never spilled a drop.

not the weirdest thing i’ve done

Posted on August 24, 2025 by greg

A couple of days ago I wrote about a photograph I’d taken of some cracks and oil stains in a random patch of blacktop. It may seem a wee bit weird to photograph a patch of blacktop, but…well, just wait. In that post, I briefly referred to the fact that there’s a difference between blacktop and asphalt. That sparked a reply to the post, and that reply reminded me of an earlier crushed stone and bitumen-related photograph I’d taken fifteen years ago.

Now that was weird.

Back in November of 2010 I was noodling around a location where a local supermarket had been demolished. All that remained of the store was its foundational slab and what had once been a parking lot. That’s where I came across something odd.

Yep, that’s a chunk of asphalt curbing around which somebody had tied a strand of red PVC-coated wire. Why would somebody do that? I don’t know, but I assumed it was to make it easier to carry. Why would somebody want to carry a chunk of asphalt curbing? No idea. I located the spot from which the curbing had been removed about 20 yards away. There were several similar chunks of broken asphalt curbing. But somebody had selected that particular chunk, tied red PVC wire around it, and moved it.

Why? No fucking clue. But it was odd, and I do love things that are odd.

So I returned to that spot about six weeks later. The chunk of curbing was still there. It had snowed, but the snow had melted off the chunk. A heron had apparently been curious enough to check it out. Not sure if that meant the heron was as curious as I was, or if I was as stupid as a heron.

Anyway, I stood there in the snow for a while, trying to cobble together some semi-logical reason for somebody to tie some PVC wire around a chunk of curbing and carry it twenty yards before dropping it. I was sure there was a logical reason; not necessarily logical to me, but logical to the person who did it. But I’m damned if I could figure it out.

I found myself occasionally wondering about that chunk of curbing and the red PVC wire. Did the person just happen to have some red PVC wire in their pocket? Had they deliberately brought the wire with them, intending to move the chunk of curbing? And why why why would they want to move it in the first place? It made no sense, but I was intrigued by it.

So I went back again on a cold, wet, foggy day in February. And yep, it was still there.

It wasn’t just strange; it was also visually interesting. I was taken with that red PVC wire. I considered taking hold of the wire and lifting the chunk, just to see how heavy it was. But I was reluctant to disturb it. It wasn’t just an object of curiosity anymore. That’s when I began to think of the chunk of curbing as a possible photo project. Which meant it didn’t seem right to intentionally change anything about the subject matter.

I returned to visit the chunk of curbing about a month later and was shocked to see it had been moved. Somebody had apparently picked it up, carried it about twenty-five feet, at which point the red PVC wire had snapped.

I can’t imagine many people would find a reason to noodle around the detritus of a former supermarket. But IF somebody did, and IF that somebody happened upon the chunk of curbing, then surely they’d be tempted to pick it up. I mean, I’d been tempted to pick it up myself. The way the PVC wire was wrapped around the chunk of curbing–it was clearly intended for it to be picked up. Who could resist it?

Somebody didn’t resist it. Somebody had seen it, had picked it up, and toted the chunk of curbing twenty-five feet. Hell, that was the most understandable thing about the whole situation.

I didn’t get back to visit my pet chunk of asphalt curbing until late in the summer. As I approached, I saw two chunks. I thought maybe whomever had moved the curbing back in the spring must have returned and broken it.

But no. It was a second chunk of asphalt curbing. Somebody–maybe the same person who’d moved it earlier–had apparently gone to the spot where other chunks of curbing were scattered, picked up another chunk, carried it to the vicinity of my pet chunk, and dropped it.

This compounded the WTFedness of the situation. It reinforced the original weirdness. It made no sense at all. It was insane. It was…kind of wonderful. I was oddly pleased by the development.

I returned a month later. Not much had changed. Some orangish lichen had grown in a nearby crack and I spent some time trying to find a way to photograph the red PVC wire and the orange lichen, but nothing seemed to work. In the end, I just documented my chunk of asphalt curbing along with its companion.

I figured I’d just about come to the end of the chunk’s story. I was still curious about the whole thing, but the original aura weirdness was beginning to fade.

Still, I’d developed something of a perverse relationship with that chunk of curbing. I felt a need to check on it. So of course I went back.

The red PVC wire had moved. It had broken six months earlier, but a length of it had been trapped beneath the chunk of curbing. How did it get loose? Maybe a bird or animal had tugged on the wire and freed it? In any event, I took it as a sign (No, not that sort of sign; just an ordinary sign) that the project was at an end. Surely, the wire would soon get blown away. Without the red PVC wire, the chunk of curbing was just a chunk of curbing. As soon as it was gone, the photo project would be over.

I gave it a couple of months. I went back in December. Nothing had changed. As near as I could tell, the red PVC wire hadn’t even moved. That was…weird. You’d think that over the course of two months something would have moved the wire. But that was just minor league weird compared to the overall weirdness.

Still, I’d made the decision that I’d keep coming back until the red wire was gone. So I returned in the spring. The entire area was fenced off and construction equipment was tearing up the old parking lot.

There’s an apartment complex there now.

I no longer live in that area, but maybe once or twice a year there’ll be a reason for me to pass nearby. And when I do, I think about that chunk of asphalt curbing, and the bright red PVC-insulated wire, and the person who’d tied the wire into a parcel-carrier. And I wonder what in the hell they’d been doing, and why. And it pleases me that I’ll never know the answer.

state fair in…monochrome?

Posted on August 15, 2025 by greg

The Iowa State Fair…well, every fair, really…is a colorful event. Bright, garish colors. Not normally a venue I’d consider photographing in black-and-white. And, in fact, of the maybe 150 photos I shot during my five hours of noodling around the fairgrounds yesterday, only a few were shot in monochrome.

Why would I do that? Because there are some scenes that feel like they ought to be shot in monochrome. Color photography is my default approach, and sure, you can shoot scenes in color and convert them into black-and-white images (which is actually the best approach, since digital imagery is grounded in information rather than color). But if there’s something I want to shoot in black-and-white…well, I shoot it in black-and-white. I want to see it in black-and-white.

Obviously, we live in a world of color (well, most of us do) and yay for that. I love color. But sometimes it’s a distraction. The photograph above is all about the beard. But this guy’s clothing was a drab sort of khaki which made his beard almost disappear. Worse, the woman next to him was dressed in bright colors. In fact, most of the passers-by were dressed fairly colorfully. The only way this photo would work was if I removed the distractions of color.

That’s one of the many advantages of digital photography. Almost every modern digital camera allows you to quickly shift back and forth between color and monochrome. I have my Ricoh GR3X set up with two different color profiles and a high contrast monochrome profile. When I saw this guy demonstrating wood-turning on a small lathe, I knew his brown-green smock would interfere with the color of the wood. A turn of a dial, and problem solved.

But what do you do when there are scenes that work in monochrome AND color? For example, a blacksmith at work. You can’t ignore the bright color of flame, or the way fire casts a glow on the surroundings. Obviously, you have to shoot both. Each carries a different emotional weight.

The photograph above is, I think, a very human photo. It’s as much…or more…about the people in the photo as it is about blacksmithing. The light cast by the flame and the high windows softens everything. It gives the image an almost cozy feeling.

When you remove the distractions of color, the mood changes. It’s not just that the composition becomes more focused on tone and texture, on shadow and light, or line and form. Removing color also means abandoning the strictures of reality. Black-and-white photos are a wee bit divorced from reality, a step or two away from the real world, recognizable but still different. This can give an image an almost mythic quality.

This photo is less personal, more emotionally distant, more analytic. It’s not about the guy doing the work; it’s more about the mythos of blacksmithing–the narrative of the smithy, the cultural representation of blacksmithing. It has a more primitive vibe. Where the color photo is about warmth, this is about heat and fire.

Also? Black-and-white photography encourages a LOT more artsy-fartsy bullshit.

asking too much

Posted on August 9, 2025 by greg

Late last night I was noodling about on YouTube, looking for something about Japanese photographer Miyako Ishiuchi (who, by the way, is vastly underappreciated) and I came across a video by–I guess he’d be considered an ‘influencer’? I’m not going to mention names; he’s a good photographer, makes a LOT of videos about photography and photo gear, he’s got a large following. This particular video was focused on his feelings about being burnt out. He said:

“Lately I’ve been feeling like my photography hasn’t been saying what I want to say. I’ve been questioning if it’s even the right medium for me to communicate my thoughts and feelings.”

Okay, valid. And hey, he’s right. Still photography isn’t a very effective medium for expressing thoughts and feelings. Writing is a good medium for communicating thoughts and feelings. Cinematography–moving images–another good medium for communicating thoughts and feelings. A cohesive series of purposely related still images can be an effective medium for communicating thoughts and feelings.

But a single photograph? Nope.

A single photograph is useless for expressing thoughts and it’s unreliable as a tool for expressing something as complex as feelings. A single photo can certainly invoke a mood, and that mood might suggest something of what the photographer was feeling. But it might not. A happy photographer can shoot a grim, moody photo; a photographer in deep despair can still shoot a cheerful photograph. A single photo, regardless of how powerful it is, is just a moment isolated in time and limited by an artificial frame.

As to thoughts, you often hear people say stuff like, “This photo tells a story.” No. No, it doesn’t. A single photo doesn’t tell a story. It can’t tell a story. A story has a beginning, a middle, and an ending; you need at least three photographs to tell a story.

BUT a single photograph can hint at a story. It can imply a story. The viewer, looking at a single photo, can create a story based on that moment. But it’s the viewer’s story; it comes from the viewer. It’s only inspired by the photo. A single photo can be the beginning, the middle, or the ending of a story. But an entire story? Nope.

This is not a story. It could be part of a story, but it’s not, in itself, a story.

That said, still photography can be a powerful story-telling tool IF you string together a series of related photographs. Photo-stories can even be more powerful than video, because you can take your time looking at a still photo. You can examine every corner of the frame. You have time to blink and think and ponder what you’re seeing in each image, instead of simply responding to the images streaming in front of you.

The photographer in the video also said this:

“I feel like a good photograph is something that expresses what the creator wanted to say.”

I dunno, maybe? If you want to say something like “Ducks are cool” or “Tall buildings are impressive” or “Look at this guy cleaning up street trash on a cold, wet, foggy morning,” then yeah, a good photo can express what you want to say. But if you want to express anything more complex than a simple declarative sentence, then your hope that a photograph will express what you want to say is…well, misplaced.

The only thing I was trying to say was, ‘Seeing this guy at work makes me feel something.’

Another thing—at no point in his video did the guy ever articulate WHAT he wanted to say. Or why he wanted to say it. Or how his photography was falling short. In fact, he said,

“I sometimes feel like I don’t have anything to say…and that I’m just making photos.”

Dude, that’s fine. Ain’t nothing wrong with just making photos. But when you deliberately take a photograph, regardless of the subject, you ARE saying something. You’re saying, “This is what I see. This is how I see it. What’s happening in front of my camera is interesting to me. It makes me feel a certain way. Maybe it’ll have a similar effect on you.” The impulse to press the shutter release is, by itself, a valid reason to take a photo.

I found this guy’s video annoying. Annoying and ironic. The irony is that the guy who was complaining that still photography failed to communicate his thoughts and feelings was actually communicating his thoughts and feelings using a medium designed to communicate thoughts and feelings.

My point is this: any expressive medium–still photography, cinema, writing, dance, painting, acting, sculpture–is limited. Don’t ask more from any expressive medium than it can give you. And don’t whine about the limitations.

a photograph i won’t post

Posted on August 2, 2025 by greg

I posted this photograph on Bluesky a couple of days ago. I almost didn’t take it.

I was noodling around the edges of a demonstration and saw this guy, overcome with emotion (and maybe the heat), turn away and sit down. He was a big guy, bald, looked strong; not gym-strong, but work-strong. The anguish on his face was hard to look at but strangely beautiful. It was probably a moment he’d rather not have in public…but he did.

Okay, let me just get this out of the way: in the US you have no right to privacy when you’re in a public space. That’s the law. If you’re in public, other people have the right to take your photograph. The question is never whether it’s legal to take another person’s photo; the question is always whether it’s ethical or appropriate. Those are individual decisions and only the photographer gets to make them.

I wanted to take that guy’s photo. But I didn’t. It seemed too private, too personal. Then he put his hand up and covered his face. The depth of his emotion was still clear from his body language, but by covering his face the image became less about him as a person and more about the emotion itself. So I took one shot and moved on.

I don’t shoot a lot of photographs of people. When I do, it’s most often during a public event. A farmer’s market, a street fair, a protest march, a sporting event, that sort of thing. Sometimes I’ll shoot people in more generic public venues–at a fruit stand, in a pub, on a bicycle ride. I may or may not ask permission to take their photo; it depends on the situation and the moment. I’m very open about carrying my camera in circumstances like this; I’m not trying to conceal what I’m doing, but at the same time I don’t try to draw attention to myself.

Occasionally I’ll see somebody who, for one reason or another, interests me and I’ll stop them and ask if I can take their photo. Occasionally, they’ll say no; sometimes because they’re in a hurry, sometimes because they’re shy, sometimes for reasons they don’t articulate. If they say no, I just thank them and go on my way.

But most people say yes. Like this guy, John, who was waiting for a bus. Most people are friendly. They may ask, “Why do you want to take my picture?” and if they do, I tell them. I told John I liked his mustache and his hat. I don’t always ask their name, but I always thank them and show them the photo. Nobody has ever asked me to delete their photo.

I DO NOT take photos of marginalized people in states of distress. I confess, I’m occasionally tempted to shoot those sorts of photos. Suffering is part of the human condition, after all, and I think if it’s done with compassion, such photos can have merit. But they can also just be cheap exploitation. And frankly, the viewer can’t know the photographer’s purpose by looking at the photo. The photo is what it is.

Having just said that I don’t take photos of folks experiencing hardship, I’m now going to admit I actually DID take one a couple of weeks ago. I was walking down a city street and came across a man who was stumbling along, leaning against a containment wall of a landscaped office building. As I got closer it became clear he was extremely intoxicated. I asked him if he was okay. He kind of wobbled his head; I couldn’t tell if he was shaking his head ‘no’ or if he was nodding. He said, “I just need to lay down for a bit, I just need to rest, to sleep.” He said that two or three times.

And he did just that. He climbed up on the containment wall, laid his head on his arm, and closed his eyes. I don’t know if he went to sleep or if he just passed out. I stood there for a very long moment, uncomfortable about leaving him and equally uncomfortable about staying with him. The look of misery and exhaustion never left his face. But there was something almost delicate about his relaxed hands.

I very much wanted to photograph him. And I was ashamed of wanting that. In the end, after a minute or so, I took the photo and left. Was it an ethical violation of his privacy in moment of vulnerability? Yes, without a doubt. But I did it anyway.

It’s a good photograph. Not a great one, but good. t’s an honest one. I like it and I hate it. I haven’t shown it to anybody. I discussed the entire incident with my partner and told her about the photo; she was rightly troubled by my behavior. So am I.

But I can’t entirely regret it.

a writer of detective fiction has thoughts on rules and magic

Posted on July 30, 2025 by greg

I recently had a semi-long, somewhat convoluted discussion (debate? argument?) with a friend who writes fantasy fiction. This is it (edited for brevity):

Friend: “Magic doesn’t have to have rules.”
Me: “Well, yeah, it does.”
Friend: “No, it doesn’t.”
Me: “Yeah, it does.”
Friend: “You write detective fiction. What do you know about magic?”

Here’s the answer to that question: All fiction is a cosmological event.

That’s it. That’s my answer. When we write a story—any story in any genre—we create a world. Most fictional worlds resemble the one we live in. The operative term there is resemble. This is true across all genres. As writers, we take liberties with the world; we shape our fictional worlds in ways we find useful. A mystery writer might, for example, create a world in which dog trainers routinely discover dead bodies and solve crimes. A horror writer might create a world in which vampires live among us. A fantasy writer might create a world in which people can engage in rituals or behaviors that manipulate natural or supernatural forces.

But when we create these worlds, we also create a set of internal rules for them. Again, MOST of those rules are patterned after OUR real world and we take them for granted. Things like gravity; if an elf drops her sword or a detective drops his gun, it falls to the ground. Unless we’re talking about elves in space.

UNLESS. The Great Unless. That’s where everything gets all slickery. You can slide all manner of things into the UNLESS envelope. Things like magic. But here’s the thing about an envelope: it’s a container. You can stuff all sorts of things inside it, but it still has boundaries. If your magic doesn’t have some sort of boundaries, you don’t have a story. If a Dark Evil threatens the Land and you have limitless unbounded magic at your command, you can just wave a hand and…poof. No more Dark Evil. There’s not much entertainment value in that.

But that doesn’t mean magic has to exist within a spreadsheet. It just means there are things that Can Be Done and things that Cannot Be Done. What Can and Cannot Be Done might be person-specific, or limited by location, or constrained by training, or or or. Those limits don’t have to be articulated for the reader, but they have to exist.

Here’s an example. One of the most delightful novels I’ve read in recent years is Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher. It begins with a woman in a bone pit, constructing a dog out of wire and an assortment of dog bones. When she’s done…hell, even before she’s done…the dog comes to life. How and why the bone dog comes to life isn’t explained. It’s magic. The woman’s ultimate goal in the story is to kill an evil prince, but her access to magic is limited. Building a dog out of a random assortment of bones is a thing that Can Be Done; killing a prince is a thing that Cannot Be Done. At least not by her at this point in time.

That right there? That’s a rule. The reader doesn’t need to know WHY the rule exists. Even the writer doesn’t need to know why it exists. But it HAS to exist for the story to work as a story. She can use magic to bring a bone dog to life, but she can’t use it to kill the prince.

Look, there’s nothing wrong in not knowing why things are the way they are. I mean, we still don’t understand how gravitation works and folks have been studying it for at least 2300 years. We know it works at the Newtonian level, but then things get all weird down at the quantum level. If we’re unable to understand and explain one of the fundamental forces of the natural world, how in the hell are we supposed to understand how things work in the supernatural world?

So yeah, magic has rules. It has to. We just don’t always know what they are. That’s perfectly…well, natural.

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