• B I G • S U R • I want to do everything. That’s how it feels most of the time. There’s this sense of wanting to explore, always badgering. And it’s tough because only a year ago I was on the road, putting 9,500 miles on my fatiguing car, the most ambitious road trip I’ve ever taken. Seeing places I hadn’t known existed in my domestic backyard. And I haven’t really looked at the images from that trip, still. It’s like they are shot, then added to a pile in my archives. Some days, I leaf through the seemingly infinite pages of raw files hunting for something to catch my eye, I’ve learned to trust my gut from this meditation. When I first started taking photos, I had this idea that I would look at a scene and say to myself, “What’s the star of the show in this scene?” And that would be my subject and I’d wander around, change angles, lenses, all of it, in an attempt to get as many compositions of the subject as possible. Then I’d add them to the archive to be later evaluated with a clearer, objective mind. I’ve learned you sometimes can’t trust your initial judgement. My favorite photographs are often ones I didn’t realize I’d love while capturing the image. And sometimes you know—a great feeling of course—but most of the time you don’t know, even when you think you nailed it, you’ll get home and the image feels soulless. It’s hard to account for the phenomenon. Whenever I write an article, I have what I call the “sleep on it” edit. I’ll write a piece, stop, call it a night and re-read the next day, sometimes a week later when I have the clearer differed head. In creativity, you need a clear head almost as much as you need the technical skills. Objectivity is a constant, nagging source for creativity. Looking at something as it is, not how you wish it were. Then you get these breakthroughs where everything feels right and, during the next morning edit it still feels right. That’s when you know you’ve created something for yourself and it’s yours. That’s you—your soul—out there, so to speak. And you just let it be. Song of the Day: Blue Hawaii – “Lilac”