Notes to a Fellow Picture Maker
You will have to think and write a ton of bad stuff before you can think and say something worth saying. The exact same thing applies to the camera. I used to think creativity was coming up with something new, until I learned it was simply about looking at many things.
Don’t chase the trap of the “beautiful picture.” I assembled my camera gear to take beautiful photos and then discovered the problem with beautiful images was that I only wanted to take beautiful pictures. It becomes a loop that pulls you away from what is real. Instead, look for what is honest. The trick is to make an image that is neither too saturated nor flat, neither too contrasty nor flat — just plain honest. A simple photo holds forms, gives the eye room, and layers objects from front to back, letting a particular color or value take center stage. Trust that what is actually there can be more generous than what is imagined.
Film photography was a folk art. It belonged to regular people writing with light, drawing simple moments into dark boxes. Framed portraits filled homes, and thick albums held evidence of ordinary days. Do not treat the camera as an escape capsule. We often think of photography as going somewhere amazing, but it actually asks us to practice a deliberate process wherever we find ourselves—even if the subject is a harsh horizon line or an old road beaten to hell. There are no shortcuts when the subject is real life.
You will face days of bad posture, sleeping wrong, a sore neck and shoulders, and driving for hours in the darkest morning hours behind the wheel. You will often look at your work and feel it is being written off as easy, because it looks like pictures of stuff. Let them write it off. It is actually a deeply intentional study of image assemblage. Near–middle–far is to your picture what time–manner–place is to a sentence. Master that grammar.
Art galleries come and go, yet artists remain open for a lifetime. Gratitude needs almost nothing to function. Photography accepted me and let someone lacking talent participate, and it will do the same for you if you honor it. No matter how long you have to step away from it, the medium sits and waits. Whenever you return, it looks up and asks, where have you been? When it asks, make sure you have an honest frame ready to give as an answer.
