The search for a camera strap for my DSLR is over for good. Finally someone came up with something that is both comfortable to wear (especially important while traveling) and functional when it comes to actually taking photos. The strap is called Cinch and it is designed and made by Portland, Oregon-based Luma Labs. The key to what makes Cinch special is the ability to easily make the strap longer so you can quickly bring up your camera to take a picture — then tighten it all right back up and be on your way. The other huge plus is the fact that the design puts the camera in a perfect cradle while you are on the go. This is a very important aspect if you are walking around all day, because no one likes a camera impaling you in the side the whole time. Or maybe you do get down like that, though probably better if we don’t talk about it.

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Nick DeWolf spent nearly his entire life carrying around a camera and documenting the places he went and the things he saw. The scale and scope of this is incredible, especially when you consider it was all done in a time before digital photography. Over the past four years I have been following his life, roll by roll and slide by slide, through Flickr. The photos are being shared with the help of DeWolf’s son-in-law Steve Lundeen, who has been methodically scanning and cataloging DeWolf’s life’s worth of photos — a project nearly as daunting as the original.

The photos have been working their way through the 1960s into the 1970s until recently when pictures from a vacation to Europe in 1959 began playing out through the Flickrstream. The trip begins in May of 1959 on an SAS flight from Idlewild Airport (now called John F. Kennedy International Airport) to Stockholm, Sweden. From there the adventures continue on through France, Switzerland and Italy. The images from this journey are some of my favorite from the tens of thousands that have been published by DeWolf.

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This past weekend in Italy I was sort of surprised to see so many motorcyclists on the winding roads of Piemonte. Upon my return to the States I received an email from the guys in at Bike Exif (which is a pretty awesome site that should be on your daily reads list) with a link to an amazing photo series from a 1953 motorcycle tour of Europe. It all just seemed too perfect considering my recent adventures; though, truth be told my weekend was spent behind the wheel of a Fiat 500, sadly not an old Triumph.

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34th Street. Note the building with the billboards who wouldn't sell to Macy's so they built around it.

There’s something about these old photos of New York that continually draws me back. I actually posted some other images from this collection by Berenice Abbott back in 2009 during the thick of the economic meltdown, which sadly many people are still dealing with. Abbott’s photos — which were commissioned by the WPA and are part of the New York Public Library’s collection — cover a large swath of New York life during the mid-1930s, another very difficult period in our country’s history.

Even though you may have seen these before, these photos are never a let down. To me it is interesting to see how much the city has changed and of course, how it hasn’t. You can see the complete set here and can own the book too, should you desire.

Under the elevated train. Beautiful.

The bread was warm. Note the fog on the glass.

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Schaffhausen, Switzerland | 11:41 am Thursday, January 20th, 2011.

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Neuhausen am Rheinfall, Switzerland | 10:29 am Thursday, January 20th, 2011.

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