I had interviews at Google while writing this cover story on their cloud computing (and really, the future of much of computing itself), and I stopped to get some breakfast at a fast-food restaurant in San Jose before catching the flight back to Newark. I took this shot with my phone. I like the colors.

So the publisher, Houghton-Mifflin asked me to get photos taken for all the promotional stuff and the book jacket. I called up my good friend Carolyn Cole, who used to work with me in El Paso and Mexico City. Since then, she's turned into one of the leading war photographers of our generation, and has won loads of prizes, including a Pulitzer, for doing work like below. So getting her to take my head shot was a little like asking Philip Roth to work up the copy for the flap on The Numerati's dust cover.

So this is one of the scores of pictures Carolyn took. Disclosure: A bit of uneven photoshopping on the bags under my eyes.

Here's a laughably low-res shot I took in muted light, with my phone, of my wife and me. I like the contrast of noses.

Here's my son at the door of our Paris apartment building. He's waiting go roller-blading. I love this shot and at some point I'll use it to illustrate something, maybe privacy or identity.

My wife found this old picture on her computer and sent it to me to illustrate "the next book." This dates from my first days with a digital camera in Paris, when I was smitten by solarization and so eager to take pictures that, for lack of other subjects, I would turn the camera on myself.

Lunchtime, with Rocksand and Thome