nabbott blog: Opportunity. Knocks.

From an essay by Mark Twain, published in the New Yorker this week here.

"A natural result of these conditions is, that we consciously pay more attention to tuning our opinions to our neighbor's pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions searchingly and seeing to it that they are right and sound. This custom naturally produces another result: public opinion being born and reared on this plan, it is not opinion at all, it is merely policy; there is no reflection back of it, no principle, and it is entitled to no respect."

The opportunity to speak is one of the great wonders of this world and that plays itself out to a writer, an athlete, an artist, a photographer. And just as an athlete practices and dissects their skills before a contest, an artist sketches and contemplates before painting, a writer studies and formulates their conceits before submitting, as a photographer, I have to do many things before a photograph is published.

When Robert Frank made The Americans, he shot 28,000 images over two years. The final edit for the book was just 83 images. And to make those images he must have examined, drove, moved, looked and waited just to be in the right place with the right circumstances to capture one meaningful moment. And then to make it through and publish just those 83 images.

It drives me crazy thinking of all those moments that I miss. Writing invoices or traveling or being lazy or not being given access or being inattentive or being unskilled or not experienced or being unprepared--whatever the obstruction between the world and a finished image is. And I try to not block myself because those are the hold-ups that are within my control.

Then there's the other side of going out and capturing all this stuff: what do you show? How do I change not just the way I edit my work, but the way I shoot and the things I allow people to know I'm interested in. Hmm, lots of things I think about, act on, get scared of...whatever, here's some more photos, published on my mini blog. And some of them, someday, might even make it into a book or magazine or hang on someones wall. Happy Holidays everyone.

Redniss. GTS.