"Three Views of Balzac", Edward Steichen

Edward Steichen was one of the most regarded photographers of his time. He made some of the first modern fashion photographs.

A lesser-known project of his is a series of images he worked on for a couple nights.

These photographs (Three Views of Balzac) from 1908 were some of the first made with moonlight as the only light source.

More than a hundred years have passed, and they are still powerful, captivating images.

Keep in mind that there was no way to meter a scene like this by then -he had to play with different exposure times. He had an idea in mind, though, and he executed it to create art that hadn't been seen before.

Simply beautiful and inspiring.

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The one image that inspires my photography

I've had this blog for a while, and I feel like I haven't written much about what drives and inspires my photography.

If I had to choose one, and just one photographer, that'd be Michael Kenna without a doubt. I am a fanboy, I own several of his books and absolutely love his photography.

But if I had to choose one, and just one image, it wouldn't be one of his.

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Bill Brandt, Lord MacDonald's Forest, Skye, 1947

I saw this image made by Bill Brandt (Isle of Skye, 1947) for the first time a couple of years ago.

There was something about it.

This image moves me so much, more today than it did two years ago. It's really hard to write this post because I can't really explain it.

The composition, the choice of a vertical format, how he removed all details from the landscape (but the cabin on the bottom right), the long exposure, the mystery... yes, I think it is the mystery.

This image inspires me every time I look at it. This is what I aim for when I go out with my camera: to create something that moves someone in the same way Bill Brandt has moved me with this image.

What about you? If you had to choose one image, which one would it be?

Photography's days are numbered

Look around you, it's going to happen.

From petroglyphs and polychrome cave paintings, to the smartphone 40,000 years later, humans have always used whatever medium they had available to capture a moment, a loved one, a thought, a story, so they didn't forget.

The more advanced the tool, the better humans could remember.

Photography is the best technique we have today, and smartphones are the culmination of almost 200 years of advances in photography.

Smartphones will also be the ones that will kill photography.

Technology is about to create a whole new world of tools to capture our lives. I'm no Nostradamus, I don't know if it will be augmented or virtual reality or holograms or something else, and I have no idea what those devices will look like.

I do know this: photography will die within the next 10 years.

The day that technology is able to capture that moment, that thought, that loved one, that story, in a way that we can relive it like we were there... in an affordable way for most of the people... that day, photography will die.

Artists have embraced all the mediums to express themselves for thousands of years, and photography will remain as an art. Like painting, sculpture or the printed word.

Moms won't be taking any more photos, though.

Look around you. It is going to happen.