Welcome!
/Welcome to my new… drumroll please… iPhone-only photography blog.
I would be embarrassed to tell you how long i have been thinking about this content. Gaddhhhh.
It has been a painfully long time in coming. I literally have pages and pages of hand-scribbled notes and journal entries of blog subjects and themes I want to write about. It has been sitting in me, for years, ready to explode and gush.
If there is one single lesson I have learned from the past 15 months, it’s that my love for words and language is maybe as strong as my love for photos and stories. Now, admittedly, I’m, not the greatest or most experienced writer in the world. But that is no longer important here. Through these posts, you’ll get to know me and I’ll get to know you. Hopefully we’ll become good friends and fellow photographers in this awe-inspiring passage. Based on my long, 40-year career in Photography, what I do know more than most, is how to connect words and pictures.
And that is exactly what you are going to see from me here. Stories, not just images. I’m going to show you, in living color, not just what makes me click but also what makes me tick. You’re going to hear my heartbeat. And feel the rhythms of my life as I move and meander through the cadence, tempo, and meter of this virtuosity. My emotional, demonstrative, sensitive style of writing won’t be for everyone. I’m well aware of that. It will be raw, honest, sometime crude, even vulgar.
The time has come. The time is now. Here we finally are. I’m glad you’re with me and equally glad you’re paying attention.
But for those special few that want to dig deeper in the Why-tos and not just the How-tos of photography… stand by. I have many pleasure and treasures in store for you. I want this blog, from the beginning, to take a different tact and trajectory. Exclusively focusing on the tech of photography, frankly , bores me.
Truth – you can learn the basic features and functions, of almost any camera, in a weekend. But it will take months and years to be able to translate that learning in making an appreciable difference in your photographs. This blog, this content, these mantras, musings and mandates will also be there to help you reach this lift and so rewarding goal. It has always seemed a bit disproportional that we spend so much time talking tech with each other that we somehow, mistakingly, by-pass the emotional aspects of the craft. Which, at some level, in the end, misses the whole point of the journey. I’m calling this a journey because it is just that – a scared and intentional wandering, road-trip, odyssey, pilgrimage.
A voyage that doesn’t necessary have a defined beginning, middle or end. Because we all bring to the expedition different life experiences, hope and dreams for our photography wishes and goals. It takes a village. If there is a final destination here, it is for each of us to find the unadulterated joy in both the art and science of our craft. It’s as simple as that. Which simple put means that there will be many paths to the same destination. No real wright or wrong. No judgement. No blame and shame. No finger pointing.
My way will not be the only way – only one unique way. But for you globe-trotting junket travelers, who share my sensibilities and sensitivities… I welcome you aboard the trip of a lifetime. I plan to write in the voice of photographers and equally in the voice of customers who buy and use our photography products and services. Most importantly, I plan to write in my own honorable, respectful, and genuine voice. Heart to heart. Me to you.
And I will so be doing for those that have eyes to see and a heart to hear and feel. I’m at a stage in my life and career where it is important to connect to the deeper thread and fabric of living. And, at the same time, inspire you like you have never been inspired before. Life and photography. Being and doing. Humility aside, I think you’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who has the iPhone photography experience I do. So I do sincerely hope that you’ll receive my brand of enthusiasm, passion, excitement and animation in a way that furthers your own life and career as an iPhone photographer. I might not be always the most consistent at posting here, but I promise to stick it out and be with you throughout the journey – at all cost and all times! I’d very much like this to be a dialogue, not a monologue.
It’s difficult for me to express my emotions here, but thanks to my loved iPhone camera, I have never been as connected to picture-taking and picture-making as I am today. I’m not talking about surface happiness but that deep-down, inward, satisfying joy and delight in Photography. I know my story isn’t unique because it’s shared by tens of thousands of photographers just like me. So I promise you here, in this sacred space, to appreciate your own journey as I do my own. I’ll trust you with my heart if you can trust me with yours.
The iPhone comes about as close to any capture device I ever used, to connecting me to the very heart of why I got into photography in the first place – to create art and express myself in life-through moments and memories. The more I shoot with my iPhone, the more I understand and appreciate its transformative power in redefining and reshaping the photography landscape of today. For the first time in our short, 200-year photographic history, we are less obsessed with technical quality and more obsessed with realism, authenticity, credibility, believability, and personal point-of-view. Photographers aren’t just any longer defined by the camera they use but the work they create.
I plan to write about all this!
We are, hallelujah, less preoccupied with craft and more preoccupied with content. No buttons, no dials, no learning manuals, no steep learning curve, no high-barrier to entry. Just point, shoot, voilà!
If you truly want to know my heart, you’ll find it here. Welcome all travelers.
Images you won’t believe. Of a journey you’ll never forget.
