Photography
A discipline of attention
Tennessee light, Nashville nights, quiet water, and the ordinary places most of us drive past without looking.
Why I do this
Familiar never means finished
Photography isn’t mainly about producing an attractive picture. It’s the thing that makes me slow down enough to see what’s actually in front of me.
It trained me to be expectant. No two sunrises are alike, and no two sunsets either. Even standing in a place I’ve stood a hundred times, curiosity matters. That way of seeing turned out to connect directly to my faith and to the consulting work — pay attention, don’t assume, read the room, keep asking why, and don’t decide in advance what’s about to happen.
Recent work
A selection
Selected prints are available through Fine Art America — paper, canvas, metal, or framed, printed and shipped by them.
What a camera taught me
Two lessons from a man who knew better than to leave early
In the summer of 2013 I met William Lee Golden of the Oak Ridge Boys while photographing sunsets at Old Hickory Lake. Watching him work taught me two things that reached a good deal further than photography.
There’s a show after the show
The best light often arrives once everyone else has packed up and gone home. Most people leave at sunset. The sky isn’t finished at sunset.
Remember to look behind you
You can get so fixed on the view you came for that you miss something extraordinary happening at your back. I’ve done it with cameras. I’ve done it with other things too.
The other half of the work
Landscapes don’t move. People do.
A landscape holds still — mostly. You may need to come back later for better lighting, a different season, a better sky. But the composition usually sits there and waits patiently while you fiddle with camera settings, filters, and the like. A person gives you a few minutes before self-consciousness sets in, and the picture you came for is gone. Portrait work demanded a whole new set of skills and introduced me to many new friends. My portrait work lives on its own page.