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Carl Gillingham

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Carl Gillingham

Pugs As People

Remember the Dolly Parton Challenge? Probably not; it was old and tired by the time Jordan and I made the quartet of images here. It was the first time I think I jumped on an internet meme bandwagon - and so late I probably missed. But AI allows us to

Two Days in F'Burg

Two Days in F'Burg

As an agreeable human, I am perfectly willing to be taken to all manner of places while someone else does the organizing. I've seen some cool stuff being guided by the wisdom of others - San Francisco... Santa Fe... Behind an abandoned store in downtown Austin... But, for

10 Shiny Things

May 2025

“Enjoy every sandwich” - Warren Zevon. May is the month of my wedding anniversary. Also that of my wife. We have a lot in common. As this one was a round number, I was uncharacteristically proactive and made reservations for us to spend a longish weekend staying in a silo

Training (the Untrainable?) Jordan

Training (the Untrainable?) Jordan

Jordan, once she settled in, turned out to be something more challenging than we’d first expected . . . an angry, protective whirlwind of intimidation and violence. Like so many tiny dogs before, she was just so full of hate. The reality of this is a little . . . stressful. She seemed very very

ChatGPT Photo Challenge #1

ChatGPT Photo Challenge #1

Prompt: You are an expert photography teacher. You love movies and art. You will create an ongoing photo project where you set the task and I must create an image that matches the brief. The requirements should be one or more of: Create a mood Recreate an image Be inspired

Travel Story: There and Back Again

Travel Story: There and Back Again

Driving through Texas is a fascinating and frustrating thing for a photographer, even an occasional, highly amateur photographer like me. Any one-lane country road has enough visual interest to fill one of those coffee table books on Weird Trees or Sexy Rust or Cattle With Huge Horns. Small towns have

Pooposcopy: Everything I Know

Pooposcopy: Everything I Know

February 2024, I coined the term “pooposcopy” as I thought it was funny, and it made it easier to talk about what was looming on my horizon. I got so used to the term that I kept forgetting what the real word was. I’ve forgotten now. Maybe it’ll

Ask Me About My Watch: A £500 Lesson in Memory & Grief

Ask Me About My Watch: A £500 Lesson in Memory & Grief

Ask me about my Armani watch. You might as well; I’m going to tell you about it anyway. In Texas, with an English accent, I can just about get away with such incredibly obnoxious behavior. “This is a £500 watch,” I’ll begin, being way more vulgar than I

Keep Medicine Weird

Keep Medicine Weird

"Keep Austin Weird" is either a way of life or an effective way to market a city that desperately wants to let everyone know it is in Texas but not necessarily of Texas. Like Austin self-proclaimed title of being Live Music Capital of the World, the idea that

The Big Snip

As humans with only a finite amount of time on this round blue ball, we measure out our days in many different ways: Birthdays, obviously; but also, relationships, jobs, vacations. One of my milestones is medical procedures. For me, there is the time before my vasectomy and then the time

The Ballad of Jordan Underfoot

The Ballad of Jordan Underfoot

If you’ve never had a dog before, adding one to the family unit will almost certainly completely restructure your life. Once you're all settled into the new rhythm you’ve negotiated together, the next thing to do is . . . to get another dog, right? Because who wants consistency?

The Ballad of John Henry

Underfoots Featured

The Ballad of John Henry

S. was a cat person; I have never cared for anything larger than a hamster, yet here we were, at the back end of 2015, in an animal-rescue shelter, looking to adopt/rescue a dog. I may have foolishly said at one point in our pre-search that pugs were weird