Camera settings are not the photo

You read about aperture, ISO, focal lengths, cameras, lenses, and image processing. You watch comparisons and search for the ideal look. Technically, you know more and more, yet you hardly take any pictures.

Technology is learnable and controllable. It provides the feeling of mastery without the uncertainty of one’s own perspective. You can keep preparing indefinitely without ever having to show what you actually see.

The act of conscious seeing. Photography does not begin with the perfect camera, but with the decision of what to look at and why.

Pick one subject and take ten photos of it today: light, hands, doors, cups, shadows, faces, streets. Do not post them; simply learn to see.