Being a second-generation photographer, I learned early
on that great photography demands not the ability to see
new things but to see things with new eyes. One of the
joys of photography is that you are blissfully unaware
of the magic that awaits you in the next moment.
Having started my career by establishing the Zen Workshop
of Photography, this philosophy taught me to appreciate
hidden nuances that probably would have escaped my mental
radar if I had chosen to start elsewhere.
From industrial photography to consumer products to food
and architecture, I have been inspired as much by the
subjects that my lens has captured, as by the people whom
I have worked with in the last twenty years.
I still belong to the school of thought, which prescribes
homework scribbles on paper for a planned shoot or mental
sketches for an unplanned picture taken outdoors. Then
again, this type of "pre-visualisation" is not
limited to the field of photography alone.
Sculptors, for example, 'see' the shape they want to carve
out of a formless block of stone even before they raise
their chisel. Musicians hear a note long before it escapes
their instrument.
Similarly, I have learnt to "see" a picture
before I take it.
The result: I spend less time looking for photographs.
Photographs discover me.
