Two score and seventeen months ago, David Clair and I boarded a COD (carrier onboard delivery) flight from San Diego to reach the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. It was a couple of weeks before the 200th birthday of the ship’s namesake, and I had asked a selection of the crew to read aloud the …
Why I once learned the Gettysburg Address by heart, and why I’m doing it again today Read More »
Just returned from seeing Jem Cohen’s extraordinary film Museum Hours, and I’m in reverie. I’ve long been a fan of Jem’s work — in particular the documentaries that evoke character and place in unique ways. I’ve also long had a crush (since 1988) on Mary Margaret O’Hara, who plays Anne, a woman from Montreal who …
On Monday, I got a call from an editor at the Wall Street Journal asking if I was available to produce and shoot a story the next morning. But it was a quick turnaround; I would have to deliver that night. I juggled a few things and arranged to shoot this very fun piece on Tuesday …
I’m a little late on this, but here’s the group (sans one student) after the very successful and well-attended screening last month of documentaries produced by MSJ students at the Medill School. The students were in a course taught by Professor Brent Huffman and myself. The audience on August 29th was filled with supporters of …
For many years, I’ve wanted to come to Palenque. Since my first trip to the Mundo Maya in the early 90s, when I did a shoot at Chichen Itza with archeologist David Freidel, I had heard that Palenque — a classical period Mayan city in what is now in the Mexican state of Chiapas — …
In my first week in Mexico I hung out in the fishing village of Puerto Morelos, which has kept its charm as a village, in spite of being halfway between the resort towns of Cancun and Playa Del Carmen. A fixture of the town, near the main pier and the central plaza, is a lighthouse. …
Flavio is quick to point out that whale sharks are not whales, but sharks. “They’re the biggest FISH in the world,” he says. He’s our guide on the hour-long drive to the launch where we’ll catch a boat to see these big creatures. Flavio gives us the lowdown on the day, pausing every so often …
Earlier this month, I gathered a group of friends — from various points in my life, from college to my early work days to my New York years — to New York Harbor to join me for a few hours on the Ventura, the 1919 schooner that viewers of this blog should be quite familiar …
My grandfather’s business card from the 1940s. No street address, just rural route 3. And the phone was a party line, but RED254 had its own ring: Two longs and a short.
Circa 1937: Here’s my dad,Willard G. Duff, the baby in the arms of my grandmother Lillian and grandfather Craig. Dad’s cousin is standing to the right.