Today our wildlife is H. sapiens, and the photographer is Lewis Lorton, who photographed the doings at a Fourth of July Parade in Washington, D.C. Here, then, is a slice of Americana.

Lew, formerly in the military, is now a professional photographer, and you can see his website here.  His captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

I am a street photographer and a retired Army officer.  When I lived near Washington, DC, I tried to attend every July 4 parade that I could. Inevitably it was hot and humid but, just as inevitably, the crowds were happy to be there to take part and to see everyone else.

Each parade starts with a color guard from the military ceremonial units based near Washington followed by the precision-marching ceremonial units themselves.  The color guard is traditionally led by an Army Lt. Col. with officers from the Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force. each of the rank of Major or equivalent.

Both those marching in the parade – and the crowds – are a remarkable display of Americana.

The Washington and Northern Virginia area has a large collection of ethnic minorities from recent immigrants, and these groups have colorful floats and bands.

One signal characteristic is the number of children that take part, the care in which they dress and the obvious affection within the families.

Floats and bands and displays come from all over the US and represent all that we like to think represents the good part of the US.

My attitude towards photography, particularly street photography, is that a ‘good’ picture should be more to the viewer than just a reproduction of what the lens sees and the sensor captures.  A good photo should engage and resonate with the viewer and give some idea of what the photographer was seeing, thinking or feeling. A good photograph should be a window into the world the photographer sees.

Send in your photos, please! Today’s batch of travel photos comes from reader James Blilie. His comments are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Here’s another group of street photos that I took. All of these were taken on my bicycle trip around the world in 1990-92.

All are scanned Kodachrome 64, shot on a Pentax LX camera with various Pentax A-series and M-series lenses.  I now own none of this equipment except the original 1978 K-1000 camera that was my first camera and a replacement Pentax M 50mm f/2.0 lens, just like the first lens I had.

Young man on the Big Island of Hawaii, cast-net fishing.

Group of sugar cane field workers, on the road in Fiji (main Island of Viti Levu).  They came out of the fields to this bus stop, carrying their big cane cutting knives.  They seemed rather intimidating; but were teddy bears.  They are posing with my friend’s fully loaded bicycle.

Young boy, Fiji.  He was the son of the right-hand man of the owner of a campground we stayed at. I imagine he has children of his own by now.

View of the old town in Singapore, 1991.  I doubt much is left of the old town now.  I hope they saved at least some of it.  Singapore seems to be mainly chrome and glass.

The nieces of the owner of a home-stay (like a B&B in the US) where went spent a night in Peninsular Malaysia, along the east coast highway.  They are looking at the photo prints of the USA that I had brought with me plus some photos from New Zealand and Australia.

Young man showing how much cargo is transported in Thailand on those little 125cc motorbikes, seemingly the national mode of transportation.  Sungai Kolok, Thailand

Scenes in traffic, Bangkok, Thailand.  The motorbike taxis are amazing.  I shot the photo of the young woman on the back of one of them to remember how these women would perch on the back, never hanging on, as they zipped through traffic, dangling a sandal from theirs toes, unruffled by all of it.  The second shot is at a taxi stand.

Swimmer, Chao Praya River, Bangkok Thailand:

Shipping with United Parcel Service, Bangkok Thailand.  Same brown paint on the UPS truck! Same brown uniform on the UPS driver.  We sent our bikes onward from Bangkok to Denmark, knowing that we weren’t going to bicycle in:  Thailand (beyond getting to Bangkok), Nepal, India, Kenya, and Egypt.

Finally, public transport in Kathmandu, Nepal.  I have no idea how people survived this kind of thing. We rode in some (sardine-) packed matatus in Kenya; but nothing like this!  We either walked or got taxis in Kathmandu.  The bus trip from Kathmandu to Pokhara in 1991 was pretty exciting. [JAC: It wasn’t much different when I did it about ten before that. If you’re on a long-distance Nepalese bus, try to get onto the roof and hang on; it’s less crowded and the scenery is great, though of course it’s not exactly safe.]

Today’s photos come from James Blilie, but they’re not his—they were taken by his dad. He explains below; click on the photos to enlarge them.

My Dad served in the US Army Air Force in WWII, flying a full tour of combat missions (35 when he was in) in the 8th Air Force over Germany and occupied France.  When the Korean war broke out, he was called up in 1950 or 1951.  Since he’d done his full combat duty, he was assigned to Military Air Transport, where he continued to fly as a navigator on cargo airplanes.  He was mainly based in Tachikawa Air Base in Japan; but also flew frequently into Clark Field near Manila in the Philippines, Taipei, and Taegu and other fields in Korea:  The work involved supplying US forces in Korea.

When he was not on duty, he wandered the areas around the air bases.  These photos are ones that he took around Tachikawa, Japan and around Manila in the Philippines.

I am stunned at how many great shots he got.  He was really in the groove when he was taking these. As one commenter on FB said:  He really knew how and when to snap the decisive moment with portraits.

These are, of necessity, my interpretations of my Dad’s negatives.  I think he would approve. I cropped the images, adjusted exposure and contrast, occasionally spotted out a distracting element, and spotted out the dust (some of my dust-spotting is sub-optimal).  But the final versions are quite close to the originals.

The first two are street photos from Manila in the Philippines.  These are just people he photographed in the street.  No idea who they are.

Processing:  Lightroom 5.  I am a beginner at processing B&W negatives in LR.  I may choose

a different SW package in the future.  Fortunately, LR does not modify the original images.

Please send in your good wildlife/street/landscape photos.

Today we have travel photos from Joe Dickinson. Joe’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Here for your consideration is the first of two sets of photos I’ll just call “Street Scenes”

This is a well-known pub in Edinburgh called Bobby’s Bar, named, I believe, for the faithful dog of a regular patron.Bobby reportedly hung out by the pub for months after his owner died.

JAC: I went to this pub fairly often when I did my sabbatical in Edinburgh. This is also the only pub where I found the wonderful Fraoch Heather Ale (made with heather flowers) on tap.

You will recognize this as a famous site in Chicago, the skating rink at Millennium Park with the “bean” in the background.

This is a view of the people lined up to take the elevator up the Eiffel Tower seen, I believe, from the first platform.

A refreshment stand in Lhasa, Tibet.  The fellow second from the right is multitasking by spinning a prayer wheel.

Also in Tibet, an industrial size prayer wheel installation allows highly efficient prayer while on the way, for example, to market.  Just hold your right hand at about shoulder height and give each cylinder (hexagon?) a twirl as you go by.

Still in Tibet, this is the Jokhang Temple, sort of the mother church for Tibetan Buddhism.  The idea is to process around the temple complex.  The common theme here and preceding is that prayers are activated when set in motion.  Two of my prized possessions are a prayer wheel and an elaborately decorated conch shell “trumpet” obtained in the gift shop at that temple.  Think about how, historically, conch shells made it to Tibet and you can understand why they were valued.  Similarly, we saw women at some festival proudly wearing large beads fashioned from coral. 

This is the gate to a little cottage that we rented a couple of times when attending the Indian Market and the Opera in Santa Fe.  Conveniently, those two events overlap.

These next two are the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, one at sunset and the other at night.

This is the first village first village, Manarola, when walking the  Cinqua Terre in Italy in the usual direction.

This is the front of the Pantheon in Rome. Generally, I avoid getting strangers in photos of historic or scenic views, but I think this young couple adds some interest.

This is Volendam in the Netherlands.  Again, the children playing in a boat adds some human interest.