Thought of the Day
Check it out, this is the exact spot that I used to play when I was a little kid here in the Wissahickon Forest. When I was a boy, my friends and I would come out here with some rocks and we line them up and create a bridge and cross this exact stream. So you could actually cross the stream when you place rocks down and go over to that other rock there and the formations over there.
So this is like the exact spot that I used to play as when I was a little kid.
And it’s reminding me of this idea of following your inner child, right?
When you’re practicing your photography, I believe that, you know, photography has nothing to do with photography, you know, your ability to create a strong photograph, you know, your ability to synthesize the content with the formalities of composition, you know, your ability to understand lighting and timing and all the superfluous technical aspects of photography, I believe are very base level.
But what I seek to achieve through my imagery is to hopefully evoke an emotional quality through the photography, you know, to go beyond reality through my own subjective personal interpretation of the world, where I seek to create a new world through, through photography.
And so that world I believe we can achieve through tapping into our inner child, that childlike state of being that derives from our spiritedness.
So I believe that Photography has more so to do with how you engage with humanity, how you feel about life. You know, it’s that kind of quality that carries me out onto the street. It’s the curiosity, the courage, right? The thumos within me, that sort of inner child that wants to come back out into the forest, climbing the trees, exploring the unknown, building bridges with stones, you know, sharpening spears, attempting to hunt deer, riding my bike.
You know, I think that there is something powerful about the childlike spirit within us as artists that we should really tap into in order to achieve our own authentic expression in photography.
And so treating photography as a visual diary, I believe, is a radical approach forward in this modern contemporary street photography scene where you see lots of contests, you see lots of photographs and imagery that’s essentially just seeking to make great frames and to make great photography.
But I say stop trying, you know, stop trying to make great photography.
Just embrace your inner childlike curiosity and allow that to guide you on the street. I let that to guide you into the world and disregard anything that’s being done in contemporary photography, what’s been done in the history, and really just tap into your own personal subjective approach to the world through photography.
And I believe that we can achieve our own authentic way of photographing through tapping into the inner child, that inner spiritedness that carries you into the world.
It goes beyond our basic abilities as photographers with compositional decisions, with our ability to tell a story. But I believe that almost to cultivate the instinct, to cultivate that state of being as a photographer where you’re simply following your curiosity without thinking, without really rationalizing anything— to me, that’s the peak experience as a photographer, is to almost just let the chips fall as they may, kind of just embracing that spirit of play as a big kid with a camera and, you know, just kind of recognizing the infinite possibilities in life and in the world through the medium.
You know, as much as I can look at this landscape and click the button and say, wow, this scene, this is a beautiful vista, this is a beautiful view, you know, I can also get really close and down on my knees and find myself photographing different details and things.
And looking at all these different intricacies and patterns and qualities, you know, reminds me of when I was a kid, you know, picking up the stones, you know, looking underneath them, like inspecting things down low.
As much as I can look up high and look at the clouds in the sky, you know, I can also look low beneath the weeds, you know.
And when you look beneath the weeds and you pick between these different things, you know, you can find some nuggets in there, you can find some secrets in there, you can find the gold, you can find that sort of thing you were looking for, maybe.
You know, I think you gotta kind of dig.
And you know, that digging kind of just reminds me of like human nature.
You know, we as humans seek to, you know, build tall skyscrapers, to go higher, to travel to Mars with spaceships, and to touch the stars.
But I find that actually when I’m closest to the ground, when I’m surrounded by nature, when I’m picking up the rocks and the leaves and all these natural things, you know, this to me is where I feel like I’m at peace.
This to me is where I feel like I seek to be.
It’s actually closer to the ground, reminding myself that I am bound by gravity, that I am just this flesh thing, that I am actually just a big child in this world.
That I find God.
And I find that to be the most beautiful way to spend my day, is in the spirit of play with my camera, not taking my life so seriously, not taking my photography so seriously, but almost just finding myself on my knees, kind of just bound by gravity, because I ultimately, I don’t really know anything.
I’m just stumbling my way through the world with my camera and photographing the fragments that I find.
And I think that to me is what it means to treat photography as a personal diary.
It’s recognizing that you can’t live forever, but at least you can make a photograph.
And while you’re here in this moment, in this world, maybe this is the best way to approach things, is to just express ourselves authentically and openly from our pure instinct through photography.
And so that’s my thought of the day.
Gonna get back to my little exploration here in the forest and continue on my journey.