Ever since becoming aware of Robert Doisneau's work (several decades) it remains one of the "go-to" sources when my battery needs recharging. In an interview he once said: "The world I was trying to present was one where I would feel good, where people would be friendly, where I could find the tenderness I longed for. I want my photos to be proof that such a world could exist." Another such source is the work of Édouard Boubat who once said regarding the horror and misery in

I grew up in rural Illinois and Edgar Lee Masters' book "The Spoon River Anthology" was pretty much required reading in high school. This is a book of short pieces written in the voices of those buried in a fictionalized small town (Spoon River) cemetery -- some humorous, some lamenting, some accusing, some confessing, some affirming, all moving. While the town is fictionalized and the names changed, it was not hard for the inhabitants of the real town near Galesburg Illinoi