On Photography

The nice thing about being asked by tourists to take their pictures is that you really get to practice your craft. Or my craft anyways. I love taking pictures. I mean to say I really just love it. But I love it the way a painter might love it. That is, just as a painter might only produce one or two paintings in a year, I may only snap three pictures every two years. I don't want to take a picture of just anything. I want it to be earth shattering. I want it to waken the mind, un-numb it. I want it to reinvigorate at least four of the major senses. It can be any four, it doesn't have to be just sight, touch, smell, and hearing or anything like that, but it does have to get at least four. Otherwise, it's just a picture. Not a photograph.

Think about that word. Photo, from the Aramaic word for light and graph from the early-Phoenician word for pencil. When you wave your light pencil across the world's cratered, pock-marked face, you want it to leave something behind. Something that churns the guts of those who encounter it. And I mean encounter. Not just see, or run into, or observe, or visit, or gaze upon, or ravage with their eyes. I mean encounter. To experience? Nay. To dance with? No. To be enchanted by? Not good enough.

I'm talking about encounter.

Not engage. Not get blindsed by. Not face or meet.

Encounter.

That's what you do with one of my photographs. My light pencils.

I'll post some of these. Please, don't just enjoy them.
Encounter them.