My photography book collection is rather small: just a handful of volumes I really adore.

Books are an important source of inspiration, and I'd definitely have more if I had a permanent home. But I can't help to think that keeping it small has helped my photography in many unexpected ways.

I lack formal education in the arts, even less in photography. I didn't have a mentor either. I learned many things from work I was seeing online, and from the books I do own, but most of what I know, I gained from experience alone. From the daily practice of photography.

Of course my work and myself as a person are heavily influenced by others. We are humans after all, we don't live in a vacuum. But the lack of formal knowledge and understanding of photography made me freer than I would be otherwise.

Free from comparisons, free from following the rules, and free from not following the rules. I was doing photography for the sake of photography.

This is still true today. For example, I try not to look at other photographer's images of a place I'm going to visit soon. I like to see it myself first, to take it all in with an empty mind, free from preconceived ideas, and make the images I see. Then, I might take a look, often to realize just how different or how similar we saw that location. It's fun.

There's a lot value in studying someone else's work, but sometimes, it's more fun to go somewhere with an open mind and try to create something different. Something that comes from within.