A magazine sent out a recent request for images of a specific town in Italy. I haven’t been to Italy since I went to my old journalism school friends Matt and Callie’s wedding in 2003. So this stock search was a great chance to root through my old film, reminisce and then get completely manic about scanning a bunch of the film.

Aside from the obvious nostalgic charm of reliving a great trip from your early 20′s, these images have opened my eyes to a few facts:

• In 2003, working as a freelance newspaper photographer, young Ryan really thought he was Henri Cartier-Bresson (though I think young Ryan had some decent chops)
• Older Ryan needs to travel more for fun
• And that there’s nothing quite as luxurious as a Leica M3 paired with a 50mm and Tri-X film. I need to dig that thing out of storage.

I hope you enjoy looking through a few of these old images.

And, some more, in case you’ve got time to kill:

Last Friday, the wife and I joined our good friends Michael and Aaron for a production of Martin McDonagh‘s, black comedy, The Lieutenant of Inishmore. I’ll leave the reviewing to Aaron, but I was going through the archive today, with plans to get a good portion of my film archive scanned, and stumbled across the image above. It was created during a trip to Inisheer, a near neighbor to Inishmore in the Aran Islands. I thought it might be a good time to revive the “From the Archive” feature on the ol’ blog. Please check out more images from Ireland in my archive and in the slideshow below.

One thing that’s missing from digital photography: Mystery Rolls. These are the forgotten rolls. The half-shot rolls, re-wound midway through because you needed a different ISO. Or maybe a personal roll you shot of your dog that you’d stick on your desk and promise yourself to take to the lab later, after your nap.

For years, I’ve had a neoprene bag full of miscellaneous rolls in the vegetable drawer of my fridge. Some look like they could be from the 1950s, and I was only born in 1977. I’m not even sure they’re mine, but, I’m going to take ‘em to the lab someday…after my nap.

ABOVE: Two frames from two recently processed Mystery Rolls, which were found amongst some unexposed film. Hank on a walk (top) and a cocktail lounge somewhere on the Jersey Shore.

April in Paris – Images by Ryan Donnell

I’ve got some new images from a recent trip to Paris that my wife and I took last month. I will be adding images to this gallery as I find time.

I just finished listening to a moving obituary of UPenn tramua surgeon and Army Reserve Maj. John Pryor by Philly-based NPR reporter Joel Rose. As I was listening, the name sparked a memory in my mind. After a few minutes it finally dawned on me that I had spent some time with Dr. Pryor in 2007.

Writer John Hurdle and I spent part of an overnight shift with Dr. Pryor in the trauma unit at the Univ. of Pennsylvania. We were working on a story about gun violence in Philadelphia. We had a lot of time waiting for a victim to come in (inevitably, being Philly, a man came in with a gunshot to the leg) and during that time Dr. Pryor told us about his work bringing the techniques developed in Philly to the frontlines in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He seemed to be a supremely thoughtful, passionate and caring man.

I send my condolences and best wishes to his family, friends and colleagues.