If you like this photo. . .

The first snow, Bainbridge Island, Washignton.

One of the things that I think is funny is there is a great need for photographers, and artists in general, to be held out as singular visionaries, whose genius springs forth from their brains, as complete as Zeus' children.  

The fact of the matter is that any photographer who is worth anything has in his or her brain millions of images that have come before.  And that is just talking about photographs. No more than our bodies, to a greater or lesser extent, reflect what you feed them, how we photograph is a reflection of what we choose to look at.

People often ask me how one learns photography.  I think it was Walker Evans who admonished his students to really look, to stare.  I would add to that, look at good photography.

I tend to like "old school" photographers.  One of the greatest was Harry Callahan.  [Wikipedia will be offline on Jan. 18, 2012 to protest SOPA.] The photograph on the right is one of many Callahan took of his wife, Eleanor. If you interested, here is a link to an interview of Harry Callahan from early 1980s.  He's as unpretentious a photographer as you will find.

It seems a little unfashionable in certain photography circles to talk about who your inspirations are.  I have no problem telling you that Harry Callahan is one of my artistic heroes.