My Way ...

Chi trova un amico trova un tesoro.

Usually, when I head out to a photo-shoot, it's a new location, new people, new light.

Most times, nothing is known or certain ... it's a new beginning. 

I don't use lights, I demand nothing from people.  I don't have a routine. 

Each person, each family, each event is like an individual fingerprint and so I can't ask for the same thing.

I want them to be as they are, wear what they love, and I like it if they can take me to their favourite place.

Sometimes I check in to see if this way of working scares me.  But it doesn't.  It seems to be the thing I love doing best, that attempt to capture people as they are. 

And anyway, I get to meet people like Steven and Isabel and that ... that is treasure, to be sure.

Translation: He who finds a friend, finds a treasure.

John Szarkowski, a quote

In the past decade a new generation of photographers has directed the documentary approach toward more personal ends. Their aim has been not to reform life, but to know it.

John Szarkowski, photographer, curator, historian, and critic.

To know life.  I thought, 'Yes!  That describes how I approach photography.  To know life, to attempt to capture slices of it, with my camera.

To slip into the midst of it, to disappear, and to come away with images where my presence was forgotten.