Interesting


    Some part of me says that if you make your “living” with photography (or, really, just try to take it seriously and become a better photographer at all) you might be incentivized to do something visually compelling with your time. Which is to say, if you want to capture something interesting, you must go out and find something interesting. I think this becomes a habit. Somewhere, sitting simply close to the center of your life, develops a belief that there are interesting things happening around you. To me, that seems more radical every day, but I won’t get too polemic about it. Or maybe I’ve just got a feeling that it’s fun to make boring or pointless things look good.

    These days, I leave my camera at home more often than not. That photographic principle, however, is baked in. Life around you can be interesting. So, make a movie of your life, or make a sequence of synecdochic stills holding space for some large, orchestrated life. I don’t really know. Here is an example.

    I walk on the beach during sunset. The clouds are out, so the golden light is muted across the landscape. Everything looks soft and slightly dull. My friend comes along, wearing a red jacket. The wind is cold, so no one is on the beach. We stumble upon a heap of rocks. My friend climbs it, taking his jacket off and holding it up, letting it waver in the wind, and finally he throws it in the air. Here is the image: a man perched on rocks with his arms high, reaching towards a streak of red cloth unfolding in the air, in front of a limitless ocean that casts the entire background into a subtle gray blue. 
    
    It’s fiction so I have no picture of it, but you can imagine that it might look cool.