Michael Nelson

Cairo's an ancient city | One of the oldest on Earth | It's congested | It's crowded | It's noisy | It's polluted | It's dirty | Egyptians know this | They shrug and remember "Masr Zaman" | Egypt of the Past Talat Harb Square | French designed downtownSo during this visit as I

I'm here in Cairo visiting family and, as usual, I take snaps of family and street scenes as I go about my business.  I decided to use a tintype app on my phone to convert some of these relatively mundane photos and I liked

While planning the Hannibal Trail journey, I was checking sites in Spain on Google Maps and came across the site of a Spanish Republican bunker complex outside of Madrid and it peaked my interest in the Spanish Civil War.   My friend Al Willner and

Last summer my son, Shamseddiin, married a beautiful and lovely South African girl, Sophia Grobler, at the Grand Gaube Lux resort in Mauritius.  An absolutely wonderful occasion with close family and a few friends in a magical oceanside setting.  Most of the photographs were

My bullfighting adventure begin with a Guru Walk tour of Spanish Civil War sites in downtown Madrid.  I was with friends Al Willner and Norman Engvall and during the tour we befriended  fellow American and military history enthusiast Steve Jelso.  After the tour he

2022 Qtr. 2 Picture Story — Press Photographers Association of Greater Los AngelesDoug Pizac , Quarter 2 Judge This category was the most disappointing.  The definition for it is to tell a story where the loss of any images would hurt the interpretation.&

We started on the Hannibal Trail where the charismatic Carthaginian leader met his only major defeat at the hands of the rival Romans.   Hannibal Barca (L) and Scipio Africanus (R) meet on the plains of Zama | 202 BC |TunisiaIn 202 BC after 16 years

North African American Cemetery | Carthage | "Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God"The Idea | Six months earlier I had made a brief visit with an Algerian colleague and friend to Carthage in what I call "Memory Lane Trips.

After my daughter was married in Topanga, she and her husband took their honeymoon in Italy and then came to Egypt where we celebrated their union Nubian style.  Most of the henna and pre-party photos were taken by Nabra's cousin and professional photographer, Mai

After participating in the Oasis Road International Forum on Photography, I decided to do a book.  However, unlike the other books that I have done in which I write my impressions and observations, I decided to quote writers and thinkers with their impressions and

Last summer our daughter married her long-time boyfriend, Daniel, at our home in Topanga.  It had been postponed a year because of the pandemic.  The vast majority of the photos in this album are done by my friend and professional photographer, Vince Bucci.   I'm

I traveled to Mauritius to see my son, Shams, and meet his girlfriend, Sophia.  Shams had moved from South African to Mauritius where he is now living. I looked up Mauritius on the internet and what many sites mentioned was the story of Paul

Hotel Offra Douz | Sahara Desert | TunisiaI was invited to Tunisia to participate in the 4th Oasis Road International Forum on Photography.   On the third day of the forum I awoke at dawn and looked out to see this beautiful pre-dawn sunrise.  I took a

I just returned from a great six week trip to the Middle East and Mauritius. We celebrated our daughter Nabra's marriage to Daniel in Cairo - Nubian style; visited my son, Shams, and his girlfriend, Sophia, at Riviere du Rempart in Mauritius: and traveled

A couple days ago, a guest mentioned she had lived in Shanghai for a year.  This got me to thinking about the trip I had taken there five years ago.  It was, and so far, has been the only time I have been to

I just recently returned from Milwaukee after spending over two months there doing home improvements and finding a new tenant.  I think I have done the round-trip road trip from LA to Milwaukee five times.  Normally, I take between three and six days to

I was given an opportunity to do a self-published book with Saal-Digital while I was in Milwaukee.  Because I only had access to what was on my computer and one hard drive that I had brought with me, I decided just to select images

After testing out the old Kodak Brownie cameras during daily pooch walks, I started taking panorama photos with the iPhone last week. I concentrated on churches and monuments as they are quite visible and easy to spot when walking Holly, my Siberian Husky (she

I tried out a new camera Kodak Brownie C No.2 dating from the 1920s and shot another roll in the 1952 Brownie Hawkeye Flash model.  This time I reassembled the camera and the results were much better in terms of sharpness and exposure.

The third camera I tried was the Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash Model which was manufactured between May 1949 and July 1961 and was one of the most popular cameras in the US during that time. As with the other cameras I used Ilford Delta

The second camera I tried out was the Brownie Target Six-20 which was manufactured from July 1946 to May 1952. It has a shutter speed of around 1/30th of a second and two apertures of F11 or F16 Richfield, Wisconsin | Saint Peters ChurchThe

Some years ago while traveling from Seattle to Topanga along the Oregon Coast, we stopped at occasional thrift shops to check things out.  It is a good way to learn about the place you happen to be passing through especially in the smaller towns.

A year ago today, 14 May 2020, my mom passed away from COVID-19 Mom and baby me in Tunisia, 1959 | Mom in her 60ties in CaliforniaIn the coming days, I'll share photos and recollections remembering my mom, Patsy Merrill Nelson. Mom and all the

Here is an interview done by Ken Hudson from the Adventurers Club of Los Angeles on April 8th about Al Willner and my adventurers investigating the Holocaust survival story of his father,  Eddie Willner. Timeline |  0:24 - start of interview introduction                                                                            10:30

In January 2020, Albert Willner, his hiking and army buddy Mike Bayles and I travelled to Poland for his endeavor to walk the Death March his father survived in January 1945. In preparation for a presentation to the Adventurer's Club of Los Angeles, I