Doug Bruns
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travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
Doug Bruns
@travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
98 followers 120 following 52 posts
Photographer & essayist in pursuit of beginner’s mind…or something like that. 😉
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travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
"To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life....While all melts under our feet, we may well catch at any exquisite passion, or any contribution to knowledge that seems by a lifted horizon to set the spirit free for a moment." ~ Walter Pater
Black and white street photography with profiles of woman
January 25, 2026 at 11:05 PM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
"“A good snapshot stops a moment from running away.” ~ Eudora Welty #streetphotography #blackandwhitephotography #leica #monochromephotography #monochrome #quote #documentaryphotography #photography #street #photo #blueskyphotography
Young boy looks at the photographer from the back seat of a car. Black and white photograph.
January 4, 2026 at 8:15 PM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
"My destination is no longer a place, rather a new way of seeing," ~ Proust
#blackandwhitephotography #photography #streetphotography #Documentary #leica #proust #literature #bnw #travelphotography #monochrome #skyphotography
Black and white photo of passenger on London Underground
January 3, 2026 at 12:17 PM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
I have at length learned
That the shadows are painful
Turn toward the light
#blackandwjitephotography #photography #resolution #newyear #bnw #monochrome #leica #poem #haiku
Black and white photo of abandoned car with happy face
January 2, 2026 at 12:00 PM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
If there anything close to answering the question of meaning and life it is that we must fill the vacuum of existence with compassion & connection while simultaneously and vigorously resisting the darkness. #blackandwhitephotography #monochrome #leica #photography

The Blue Mosque, Istanbul, 2025
Black and white photo of two women in the Blue Mosque in Istanbul.
January 1, 2026 at 10:34 AM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
I took this shot several years ago in Florence. I had just purchased a Leica MP, a totally mechanical, analog camera. As the years passed I switched to digital cameras and sold the MP. My heart is still broken. What a stupid thing to do!
#leica #florence #blackandwhitephotography #streetphotography
September 22, 2025 at 9:00 PM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
My thoughts about moving to Portugal after my most recent visit. #expat #livingabroad #livingineurope #portugal
Report from Portugal II
...second thoughts?
dpbruns.substack.com
September 22, 2025 at 8:45 PM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
The loniness of the long-distance traveler.

#blackandwhite #leica #streetphotography #blackandwhitephotography
September 14, 2025 at 9:25 AM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
These three, a family, together but apart, together but alone, hands in pockets, in separate orbits.

#blackandwhitephotography #leica #streetphotography
Together alone.
September 12, 2025 at 5:52 PM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
open.substack.com/pub/dpbruns/...
The Rain in Spain
...makes us run to the café
open.substack.com
April 27, 2025 at 10:39 AM
Reposted by Doug Bruns
mcuban.bsky.social
www.thefp.com/p/im-a-soybe...
I’m a Soybean Farmer Who Voted for Trump. I’m Begging the President to End the Trade War.
The tariffs on China could put us out of business by 2027. All our blood, sweat, and toil could vanish with the stroke of a pen.
www.thefp.com
April 19, 2025 at 12:51 AM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
Leaving the US as a (metaphoric) change of operating systems. #expat #liveabroad #travel #immigration #moveabroad
Changing the Life OS.
Moving abroad as a change of operating system.
open.substack.com
April 17, 2025 at 4:29 PM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
Are You One of the Few Americans Who Really Could Move to Europe?

Good reading as we start to ramp up our residency visa application. #travel #livingabroad #expat
Are You One of the Few Americans Who Really Could Move to Europe?
Ten questions to ask yourself before you decide to move abroad
open.substack.com
April 15, 2025 at 3:43 PM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
By Way of Introduction

Going to Substack to begin series on travel and moving abroad. #travel #livingabroad #writing
By Way of Introduction
A blocked writer takes to Substack.
open.substack.com
April 15, 2025 at 3:21 PM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
I'm at work on a series of essays about the essayist Michael de Montaigne. The first in the collection is a review of Sarah Bakewell's biography, "How to Live," linked here.

dpbruns.medium.com/book-review-...
Book Review: “How to Live, A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts to Answer” by…
I was first introduced to Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) about thirty years ago. I was in graduate school. I don’t remember the class, nor…
dpbruns.medium.com
January 5, 2025 at 7:10 PM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
“The picture of a shadow is a positive thing.” ~ John Locke

#filmphotography #blackandwhitephotography #analogphotography #leica

©Doug Bruns 2024
Two silhouette walk through a bright portal in a black and white photograph by Doug Bruns.
December 31, 2024 at 12:38 AM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
My essay, The Philosophy of Walking, originally published at The Courtships of Winds, is now up on Medium.
#essay #walking #creativity #philosophy
The Philosophy of Walking
Despite my titanium hips, and foot problems from years of marathoning, despite my tender back–one slipped disc–and the general wear and…
medium.com
December 28, 2024 at 3:02 PM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
“One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you’d be stricken blind.”
– Dorothea Lange

#photojournalism #blackandwhite #drama #leica

© Doug Bruns
A helicopter takes off behind barbed wire in a remote mountain valley of Nepal. A black and white photograph by Doug Bruns.
December 18, 2024 at 9:26 PM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
“As I have practiced it, photography produces pleasure by simplicity. I see something special and show it to the camera. A picture is produced. The moment is held until someone sees it. Then it is theirs.”
– Sam Abell

#streetphotography #analogphotography

© Doug Bruns, 2024, Italy
A woman walks in an alleyway, photographed from above. A black and white photograph by Doug Bruns.
December 15, 2024 at 12:03 PM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
Dream state

#streetphotography #blackandwhitephotography #analogphotography #filmisnotdead #filmphotography #leica #street #documentaryphotography
A blurry black and white image of a young man approaching the photographer. Photo by street photographer Doug Bruns
December 13, 2024 at 9:58 PM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
Thank you to The Sun Magazine for profiling one of my images. It is always a pleasure to see one's work out in the world, but especially so when the outlet is a favorite!

#thesunmagazine #photography #thesun #blackandwhitephotography #streetphotography #published
Bio of photographer Doug Bruns. Black and white photograph of Doug Bruns as published in The Sun Magazine.
December 13, 2024 at 5:04 PM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
“I fell in love with the process of taking pictures, with wandering around finding things.” ~ Alec Soth

#streetphotography #filmphotography #analogphotography #London #leica #monochrome
A black and white photograph by Doug Bruns. A pedestrian walks by a Piccadilly Line train in London.
December 13, 2024 at 1:26 AM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
“There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment.”
— Robert Frank

#photography #blackandwhite #streetphotography #monochrome

© Doug Bruns
A man sits on a stoop under an umbrella on a rainy day in Siena, Italy. A black and white photograph by Doug Bruns.
December 12, 2024 at 11:13 AM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
“Sharpness is a bourgeois concept.”
~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

I like what I like. That’s the only concept I embrace.

#blackandwhitephotography #monochrome #leica #quote #hcb
An old woman walks past a concrete wall at the British Museum. A black and white photograph by Doug Bruns
December 10, 2024 at 8:21 AM
travelingpilgrim.bsky.social
“Wedged as we are between two eternities of idleness, there is no excuse for being idle now.” ~ Anthony Brugess

…yet I find periods of idleness, even long stretches of idleness, refreshing and creatively beneficial.

#blackandwhitephotography #analogphotography #quote #filmisnotdead

© Doug Bruns
A man stands under an arch in Siena, Italy. A black and white photograph by Doug Bruns.
December 9, 2024 at 9:38 AM