“This might not seem like nothing to you now, but it will.” — This is me: I have been a photographer for more than 40 years, a writer for fewer, a long time resident of the Bay Area, but moments away from a big move to Santa Fe, New Mexico. When I was a kid, I was a young protégé of Jerry Uelsmann…

A brief breakdown of this idea in action — One of the aspects of photographic haiku that I’m always working on, and that gives students pause, is the balance between “moment” and “object.” While the things that catch my eye are very often cool looking (patterns, shadows, scenes), my haiku practice pushes me to capture images that are more…

After 40 years I’m starting to get good, and understand. — My photography is a practice. Like yoga, you never “get there” so much as hope to keep growing. It’s a way of seeing, obviously, but for me it’s also making a short poem out of what I see. The poems might be funny, or wistful, or arousing — they offer…

Lessons of haiku, and their applications to photography — After decades of studying and shooting photographs, I found my favorites from history had certain hard-to-describe attributes in common. My own photography adapted that style. A few years ago I began investigating haiku and other Zen arts, and found the attributes, rules, and ambitions were shockingly aligned with what I…

The expression is misunderstood, and the correction. — The photographic master Henri Cartier-Bresson made some key observations about photography, translated as “the decisive moment” which is often (incorrectly) characterized this way: capturing an event that is ephemeral and spontaneous, where the image represents the essence of the event itself. Much is written about the psychophysical experience of “decisive…

What I Learned From This Playful and Pioneering Photographer — Uelsmann passed away this week; photographers and creatives worldwide are mourning. Carol McCusker, the curator of photography at the Harn Museum, wrote this of Uelsmann: Uelsmann came of age in the 1960s which informed his art, a period of resisting the status quo. He joyfully challenged and expanded traditional notions…