On photography

Taking a photo is, at its core, a simple and well-defined action. Light is captured on a sensor, frozen in time as an image. But beyond this technical process lies an entire spectrum of intent and meaning, making photography a deeply complex and varied medium.

At one extreme, photography is purely informational. It serves to document an event or a fact, without concern for aesthetics. Think of the photo you take after a car accident for an insurance claim—its purpose is to capture evidence, nothing more. At the other extreme, photography exists solely as an aesthetic object, meant to evoke emotions or enhance an environment, such as a carefully curated image decorating a restaurant wall.

Most photography falls between these extremes, balancing information and aesthetics. Sports, product, wedding or photojournalistic photography, they each strike their own unique balance between capturing reality and creating visual impact.

For me, photography has always been about storytelling. It has been a childhood dream of mine to become a photojournalist—to report a story through a series of images. A strong photojournalistic image must be aesthetically compelling enough to draw attention, yet it must also serve an informational purpose. This is why I rarely publish single images in isolation. Instead, I aim to present a series, where the collective impact of multiple images gives a fuller understanding of a moment, an event, or a place. Even if no single photo stands out as extraordinary, together they weave a narrative that brings the viewer closer to the truth of what happened.

They got this guy in Germany. Fritz something. Or is it? Maybe it's Werner. Anyway, he's got this theory. You want to test something, you know, scientifically. How the planets go around the sun. What sunspots are made of. Why the water comes out of the tap. Well, you gotta look at it. But, sometimes. You look at it. You're looking changes it.

You can't know the reality of what happened or what would have happened if you hadn't have stuck in your own goddamn schnaz. So there is no what happened. Looking at something changes it. We call it the uncertainty principle. Sure it sounds screwy, but even Einstein says the guy's onto something.

Science, perception, reality, doubt, reasonable doubt. I'm saying, sometimes the more you look, the less you really know. It's a fact. Approved fact. In a way, it's the only fact there is. This Heiney even wrote it out in numbers.

— The man who wasn't there. Coen Brothers.

I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything.

And there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little bit. If I can't figure it out, then I go to something else. But I don't have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things.

By being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose. Which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn't frighten me.

— Richard Feynman

Many of the postulated insights are highly speculative, and some will undoubtedly prove incorrect; however, in each case, I have provided the reasons that have led me to favor one conclusion over another.

False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, as every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path towards error is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened.

— Charles Darwin