I’ve made no bones about my jealousy of Steve Pinker: his fluid ability to write, his awesome work ethic and productivity, his eloquence on the dais, and his ability to not just retain everything he’s ever read, but also bring it up when it’s appropriate. Oh, and he also lacks any arrogance—unusual in one of his renown.
And now I find the man does photography, too, and it’s good. He has a webpage just for his photographs (arranged by region and subject), and there are some from a recent trip to Vermont and New Hampshire when the leaves were turning. (If you’re not American or Canadian, fall in New England is one of the great sights of North America.) Here are a couple of those, and a few other shots from the site:
Knowing that the readers would want to know what kind of equipment Steve uses, I asked him, and he responded, “The New Hampshire and Vermont ones were taken with the Leica M (Type 240). The metadata for each shot (including camera and lens) are available on the site by clicking the circle with the little ‘i’ in it.”
Some more from the site:
New Mexico:
India:
Cape Cod, where he and Rebecca have a place (there are lots of photos):
And the theater at Delphi, one of my favorite places:
Well, at least I can contribute one thing to his personal development: I can (and will) advise him on which cowboy boots to buy—the one area where my expertise exceeds his!
Your one area of expertise? I’ve been told you know a thing or two about speciation too.
And cuisine and wine also…
and kittehs?
Amazing shot! nice.
You should send boot advice (or actual boots!) to Lawrence “Red Sneakers” Krauss.
These are really good. The composition and balance of objects are what a professional photographer would go for, for example.
Excellent pics. Are you sure, Jerry, that your knowledge of innovative and talented singers does not exceed Pinker’s? It probably does.
Just great, now I’m looking through all of his pictures. Makes me want to go back to Europe immediately.
Yes, he’s inspiring me to do more UK photography, and I live here! Somehow he’s found angles that I missed on familiar locations.
Beautiful – he really has an eye… The New Mexico photo looks like a painting. Wonderful!
that’s my fave;-)
He’s good!
You admire someone else’s work ethic! How the hell do you think that makes the rest of us feel?
…like chumps but I’ve accepted that about myself 😀
I’ve admired Steven Pinker’s pictures for some time now. He does have very good composition skills. I also check out the meta data on his photos and I’m pleased to see that he uses a lot of the same equipment as me over the years, including some mirrorless cameras. This makes him even awesomer in my view because he isn’t taken in with equipment snobbery but appreciates what the right equipment can do, regardless of brand name.
First, agreed that he does good stuff.
…but the Leica M isn’t exactly an inexpensive camera….
b&
No but I’ve seen some of his photos on his site taken with Sony NEX cameras (my favourite mirrorless that I use) for instance and few other cameras some people would turn their nose up at because it wasn’t Canon or Nikon.
I’ve seen some great photos made with cellphone cameras…then again, it’s all about the light, anyway….
b&
…especially the barbed wire custom model…
Ah, yes…the proctological edition….
b&
Oh no, not this again!
Hi, Agrajag! Say, “Hi,” to Arthur, will you? And tell him he still owes me a pan-galactic gargle blaster!
b&
When you have a fantastic landscape & the right light, a modern camera can do wonders & all you need to do is frame it or crop it. people & animals are a lot harder – movement, opportunity…
Yes animals are a challenge to get a really good shot and good glass gives you a big advantage.
uh…”fruit flies”–(Drosophila)…
I am the only person in the world who took longer to read “Better Angels” than Prof. Pinker did to write it. What does that say about me? Don’t answer that.
No I took forever to finish reading it too. I recommended Better Angels to a friend today and told her about how it took me so long that although I loved reading it, I bemoaned it like I could do nothing else until I finished reading it.
Marvelous. Wonderful eye.
Watched his collection on my new ipad mini with retina display. Just wonderful.
Well, using Leica implies that he’s serious about his photography!
Great photos.
You forgot to mention his great hair. I know *I’m* envious.
A Leica M!
So he ALSO has good (and expensive 😉 ) tastes in photography. Good on him, he deserves one.
Just my opinion, but the only person that I put on the level of Pinker is Robert D. Kapalan. And yes, they know each other, and have had discussions.
Here is his latest piece in Foreign Policy titled “Augustine’s World: What Late Antiquity says about the 21st century and the Syrian crisis.” http://tinyurl.com/lfdfl3s
And here is a discussion at the Global Ethics Forum between Pinker and Kaplan.
youtube.com/watch?v=L4HqDwqXZSM
“the one area where my expertise exceeds his”
Do you have children? Pinker described himself as “voluntarily childless”. (I assume that is still true.)