Once a week, often on Tuesdays for no particular reason at all, the Raboff’s side-step the usual cuisine and splurge like there’s no tomorrow.

See, a couple of months ago, we discovered a package of smoke vegan hot dogs at our local grocery store and life on Tuesdays hasn’t been the same ever since. I know, technically, hot dogs have to be made of some kind of meat. But as most smoked foods taste decent regardless really of what they’re made from or of, I knew these dogs were going to be pretty tasty. At least when compared with ordinary vegan sausuges – which taste slightly better than wet wool socks (as if I actually know how wet wool socks taste like…), the smoked dogs are absolutely delicious.

The sausages we eat are organic as is the potatoes, mustard, ketchup and dry roasted onions. My recipe for delicious mashed potatoes? A squeezed clove of garlic, a few generous pinches of salt flakes, teaspoon of finely ground black peppar, a dash of nutmeg and a cup or so of almond milk and finally, a few tablespoons of organic olive oil.

The idea and reasoning of Marcel Duchamp’s “readymade” art has intrigued me since I first learned about it in art school almost 30 years ago. And for the last several years, I’ve been fascinated by how much of what surrounds us – stuff that we mostly consider to be just utilitarian objects or tools, can actually offer me a level of lasting aesthetic pleasure.

Exhibit A: The design of the blue shophouse gate above provided me with an appealing pattern, the foreground and background layers offered interesting dimensionality and the chipped paint itself created an intriguing texture. It was like a beacon and I just could not resist spending some time figuring out how to photograph it.

As those of you that have stopped by here regularly over the years know well, I’ve had an aruguably absurd appetite for grand landscapes – irrespective of whether it’s a chaotic-mega-metropolis like Bangkok (above) or a hidden, ever-so picturesque sunset on an island in the Maldives.

Though soothing to the eye and thus easy on the brain, I’ve gotten really, really tired of looking at most of the many thousands of landscapes I’ve shot over the years. Generally speaking, landscape photography is just too easy, too unchallenging, hence too damn boring. Unless, of course, you count the physical effort and financial investment necessary to get to that perfect spot at the right time – a challenge. Which it often is in retrospect.

Aside from the wide variety of images I post here on the blog, the majority of my creative prowess is currently being poured into producing multidimensional pictorials or photographic “stories” that cover a wide-range of topics and themes. The one currently on the top section of this page is titled, “Collect Call from Lincoln” and consists of some of my favorite images from what might possibly be my favorite street, the extremely ecelectic Lincoln Boulevard in Los Angeles.

Anyway, this new phase is probably the most challenging thing I have ever pursued in my creative life. But it’s simultaneously incredibly liberating. I feel as free as when I painted with oils, acrylics, crayons, charcoal and aerosol sprays back in the 1990s.

So, now when I’m traveling or just out and about, I force myself to look at things a bit differently. I focus more on surfaces, textures, materials, shapes, layers and depth. I research, take my time and don’t worry at all about the big picture, the landscape. For now, beauty is in the details, the patterns, the patina. And soon, very soon, I’ll be in a place where a plethora or buffet of all of these newfound “ingredients” to my work are available in seemingly inexhaustible quantities. Stay tuned!

Filmed during yesterday’s amazing weather. Mostly shot on my iPhone 7+ with a little stabilization in post.

Just by virtue of how their anatomy and color scheme, flamingos are certainly one the most extravagant looking creatures on our planet.

Whoever or whatever designed them must of had a sense of humor. I’m not saying that flamingos are comedic looking. But they do almost have the look of a caricature or a cliché. Looks and colors apart, from an evolutionarily perspective flamingos seem to be perfected for their specific ecology.

I captured this particular specimen, whom belonged to a contingent of hundreds of flamingos, in the Camargue near Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer and Arles in Provence, France.