In the past, through articles and emails and speeches, most notably in the recent talk I gave at the Out Of Chicago Photography Conference, whose recording you can find here, I mentioned the Helsinki Bus Station Theory, first introduced by Finnish photographer Arno Rafael Minkkinen. The theory is a metaphor of the life of an artist and of a photographer in …
Urban Morocco: Rabat, Fez, Meknes and Chefchaouen
The old fanatical and sombre town is bathed in the gold of all this sunlight; spread out at my feet, on a succession of hills and dales, it has taken on an aspect of unalterable and radiant peace; it looks almost smiling, almost pretty; I scarcely recognise it, so much has it changed; a kind of ruddy radiance sleeps on …
The 7 Habits According To Sandra Nesbit
When I initially conceived, wrote, and finally published my article, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Photographers, I imagined it would be considered inspiring and stimulating by readers. I wasn’t certainly expecting that the first serious feedback I would receive would tell me it was annoying. This however is exactly what Sandra Nesbit did. She kept sending me emails, telling me …
The Gilded Room in Venice
I have been to Venice many times, but for some reason I never took the chance to visit the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, an amazing masterpiece of Renaissance architecture and painting. All the paintings in the building are by Tintoretto or other members of his school and they decorate every wall and ceiling, especially those of the great hall on the …
The Floating Piers
What would you do if your national team was playing an important football match and you lived in a country where football (soccer for you Americans) is akin to a religion? Well, I don’t know about you, but me and a couple of friends decided to go out and take pictures, instead of watching the match. What we wanted to …
The Myth of Talent
“I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent. Curiosity, obsession, and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my ideas” – Albert Einsten The idea that some people have an innate talent and that you can’t be an artist if you don’t have talent is so ingrained in people’s minds that almost every time I …