so if you’re learning a language by far the best way to do it is not in school. i can say this because i’ve done it. sitting in class in osaka i remember wondering if i wasn’t better off skipping my test and heading out to drink with my japanese compadres. there’s acquisition in both cases but one would definitely be more natural. the biggest problem with rote learning is that it’s the end goal. as obstacles pop up it’s intensely frustrating because they block your entire purpose.

on the other hand, if you are to take up language to reach a family member, or say a lover, well then you’ve just eliminated a fair chunk of the frustration involved with the language itself. at that point language is merely a hoop to work through to get to your end goal of personal communication.

this is how i feel with a majority of the work i do. it’s not the individual projects that attract me to photography as much as i do truly enjoy them. rather it’s the personal evolution involved with the ongoing process of visual creation. in fact, i think of photography as a language that i’m commissioned to use to translate a clients concept into a viable vision for public consumption.

why am i talking about this. for one, language and images have always fascinated me and are tied much closer than most people consider. secondly, after a challenging job, such as i had this week working on a cover for a magazine, you have to keep it all in perspective. out for a fall/spring shoot in glacier national park we encountered five different versions of whether or not the road was open or not before 9am. eventually it actually opened and we headed out to find up to a foot of snow in places and a howling wind. the scenery was spectacular but let’s just say the behind the scenes wasn’t.

keeping a long term vision of your work and path is as imperative as an email address and phone line in my mind. if you don’t have a vision to give vision to then you’re never going to hit any target consistently.