Number One: Pursue Obsession Without Apology The subjects that return to you uninvited — the ones you feel almost embarrassed by their persistence — are precisely the ones worth pursuing. A personal visual language is built from obsession, not from subjects deemed appropriately serious or commercially viable. The embarrassing preoccupation…
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One might ask why this matters — whether it is not, finally, a self regarding project, a kind of extended navel-gazing with better materials. The answer is that a genuine personal visual language is one of the most outward-facing things a human being can produce. When you construct a language…
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Sometime, within the first few weeks of art school, someone will say it. A professor, a visiting critic, a paint-stained upperclassman leaning in a doorway–they say the same thing. And, it sticks with you: “Create your own personal visual language.” The phrase lands with the weight of instruction and the…
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Since receiving my first rangefinder camera at age nine, I have learned from my practice and studies that photography is a decisive engagement with reality. This phrase suggests something far more active—and far more philosophical—is involved with photography than simple image-making. The phrase frames photography not as passive recording, but…
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“f/8 and be there” — the old photographer’s mantra. I paraphrased this expression into the title of today’s post – f/8 and don’t be late” – but the spirit is the same. And, it sounds better with a rhyme don’t you agree? This saying is commonly associated with Arthur Fellig,…
Please Read On ... There is a peculiar moment in photography when technique begins to masquerade as doctrine. One hears it often, spoken casually but with quiet authority: don’t shoot at f/16. The reasoning is not without merit—diffraction, that subtle optical phenomenon, begins to soften the image as the aperture narrows. Lens tests confirm…
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There is a long-standing assumption embedded in the word transparency: that to see through something is to understand it. Glass, clarity, openness—these are typically aligned with truth. TRANSPARENCY PROJECT challenges that assumption directly. It proposes instead that the more transparently we are allowed to see, the more complex—and unstable—our understanding…
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Concept & Proposal For An Art Exhibit Build An Architecture For Seeing Through 1) Build a structure 30 feet long, 20 feet wide with 15 foot walls and a simple entry in the front of one of the wide sides. No ceiling. 2) Build a cube 10 foot wide, 10…
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Originality has long occupied a peculiar position in the creative hierarchy—revered, pursued, and frequently misunderstood. It is often described as the act of making something entirely new, yet in practice it more closely resembles the careful rearrangement of what already exists. Ideas echo other ideas. Forms borrow from forms. Even…
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Eric Hatheway 
The Artist