Excerpt from It's Not About the F-Stop:
Every once in a while, you turn the corner and you see something remarkable that cries out to be recorded. This was on a boat, a ferry of some kind, in England.
The sure thing, the thing that I’m talking about, is the juxtaposition of the profile of the man and the red panel. There was no way in Hell that I could pass this up. It’s the kind of image that speaks to me quite directly and says, “Look at me! I’m here for you. You must shoot this.”
What’s interesting is that the next guy to see this, depending upon what makes his bell ring, could just as easily look at it and say, “Oh, that’s obvious, that’s too design-y” or, simply put, “It doesn’t do anything for me.”
Therein lies the point. There is no “way.” There is no “right” or “wrong.” It’s all about the way we have been shaped by the literature, movies, paintings, music, and anything else you can name that has influenced your attitude.
Different people look at different things and say, “That’s lovely,” or “This is garbage.” You’ll never be able to get any three people to agree on anything in terms of validating art. However, that is neither necessary nor desirable. Your views will, if you’re open, be constantly changing. And the truth of the matter is you have one, and only one, obligation and it came from Shakespeare:
Hamlet : Act 1, Scene 3
“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
This group of 35 images comes from 35 different countries. Some were stays for a few days, some longer. The longest was Jerusalem where I spent six weeks.
There are, I hope, no overall similarities among these countries. I do, however, note that no matter how spectacular the landscape and flora and fauna, I found myself more challenged and fascinated by the people in each country. The architecture also was amazing in terms of its magnificence or its humbleness, but the faces, the gestures of the people are what called to me.
Each image chosen represents hundreds if not thousands of others saved for future collections or books.
