photography
The photos we made most recently, especially the ones that took the most effort, are the hardest to judge. In this video, I talk about recency bias and effort bias, using photos from a recent backpacking trip in the North Cascades. I also share a faster way to gain perspective on your work that doesn’t involve waiting for years.
With a new camera and a new lens, my camera setup is finally done. For now, at least. The gear I'm bringing on this photography road trip is everything I could ever dreamed of.
As shown in the video:
Main Camera: https://link.amazon/B0dnNuoU8
Backup Camera: https://link.amazon/B0fqnd9uD
Wide Angle: https://link.amazon/B0b1A7HiX
Standard Zoom: https://link.amazon/B04hShycR
Telephoto: https://link.amazon/B08K3zcmz
ND filters: https://link.amazon/B066OvtGi
Battery charger: https://link.amazon/B0cq0iHl6
Tripod: https://link.amazon/A0hfgYTXE
I recently found this quote by Anni Albers:
Being creative is not so much the desire to do something as the listening to that which wants to be done: the dictation of the materials
This speaks to my heart because it’s the way I see photography, so I couldn’t resist adapting it to our art:
Photography is not so much the desire to photograph something as the listening to that which wants to be photographed: the dictation of the light and the scene
The work of Ansel Adams has been key to the history of photography, and it's still influencing photographers today. But it was created in a very specific context, and that's why I believe someone starting from scratch, making similar work today, wouldn't get much traction at all. The masters of the past didn't become who they are by doing more of the same. They pushed the limits of the art further than anyone before them.
Timing is extremely important in photography, that's why we should always be ready. Just in case the conditions we were waiting for finally happen.
I had an incredible experience at Hidden Light, where I had the chance to print some of my digital photos in the darkroom, using Platinum Palladium. And no one better to teach me than Matt Beaty, who's built an incredible lab where the prints some of the biggest Pt/Pd prints in the world.
I recently lost my dog, Luna. She came with me on hundreds of hikes and trips, always by my side while I was making images. But I'd trade them all for the photographs that truly matter.
I'm back in Spain. Sadly, I came earlier than expected because our dog, Luna, was sick. It looks like she was waiting for me, because she peacefully passed away yesterday, just a few days after I arrived.
It's always a sad time when you lose a companion. And Luna was the best and most loyal adventure partner I could ever have asked for. She was always in for a walk, a hike, a long trip. We went to many places together, hours before sunrise, hours after sunset, in the snow, in the rain, in the heat and in the cold. It didn't matter the conditions, or the view. She couldn't care less about that, she was all about enjoying the moment no matter where we were. About exploring together. She always had my back.
Luna spent the last years of her life here in Spain in my parent's farm. She didn't get to go on more adventures like we used to, but I know she enjoyed farm life way more. Every day was an adventure, and she got to share it with two other dogs, many cats, and whole lot of humans.
Luna played a huge role in me becoming a photographer. It was because of her that I started going on hikes around Portland. She never, ever said no. Always ready to have a great time.
That's what I've been trying to do this week, as I knew the time was approaching. I got to go out on long walks every day, alone (she was too weak already), with my camera and my thoughts. Exploring the world she loved so much.
It's helping. I usually come back with tears in my eyes, but also with a smile. Life can be cruel, but only because it's also so beautiful. Let's enjoy it while it lasts.
What is real photography?
I thought 2025 was an ok year for my photography, until I sat down to reflect on the work. It turns out it was a decently good and productive time!
We all feel frustrated about our photography at some point. But the doubs and fears are normal and part of the process. We get to create not because we don't feel them, but despite them.
When I'm not feeling inspired, I use this simple trick to get me and my camera out.
The story behind a piece of art can be as important, if not more, than the piece itself. How we make art matters, a lot.
Talent is great, a good camera helps a lot, and having the resources to travel is amazing. But no matter where we start, the gear, or the locations we have access to, the biggest factor for our work is time. There’s no shortcut, no substitute for showing up, over and over, year after year, decade after decade. And doing it in a sustainable way.
Trento, Italy, November 2019.
“The fact is that relatively few photographers ever master their medium. Instead they allow the medium to master them and go on an endless squirrel cage chase from new lens to new paper to new developer to new gadget, never staying with one piece of equipment long enough to learn its full capacities, becoming lost in a maze of technical information that is of little or no use since they don't know what to do with it” — Edward Weston
I’ve talked about consistency many times on this blog.
We need to give our tools and style some time to mature, we need to give ourselves enough room to grow with our current tools. Don’t try to photograph everything, focus on a few things.
In 1977, on the sidewalk outside his loft on Twenty-third Street in Manhattan, the fifty-eight-year-old W. Eugene Smith watched from a wheelchair as some two dozen volunteers—mostly young photography students paying homage—loaded his life’s work into two shipping trucks.
When the shipment arrived in Tucson, it filled a high school gymnasium and spilled into outlying rooms.
Included in the shipment were three thousand matted and unmatted master prints; hundreds of thousands of meticulous 5 x 7 work prints; hundreds of thousands of negatives and contact sheets. There were hundreds of pocket spiral notebooks and thousands of 3 x 5 note cards with scribbled notes; maps and diagrams from all over the world; and hundreds of boxes of clipped magazine and newspaper articles. Smith wrote hundreds of fifteen-page single-spaced letters to family, friends, and people he barely knew, and he mimeographed copies before mailing them. There were dozens of cameras, various pieces of darkroom equipment, trash cans and boxes full of loose lens caps, rubber bands, and paper clips. Smith also had 25,000 vinyl records and 3,750 books.
[Smith’s] death certificate read “stroke” but, as was said of the immortal jazzman Charlie Parker, Smith died of “everything.” He was flat worn out. He’d given up. He left eighteen dollars in the bank, and forty-four thousand pounds of materials.
Gene Smith's Sink: A wide-angle view
I’ve long argued that you need to be obsessed if you want to become great at something. But Eugene Smith took this to extreme.
We have to commit to our art with either intensity or longevity. They are almost mutually exclusive, as ferocious intensity can’t be maintained for too long. Even if your mind can hold, your body will eventually fail, as happened to Smith. He died at 58, leaving many years of potential growth and work on the table.
Consistency and a healthier balance over a long period of time are usually the wiser choice.
Fuji is getting a lot of attention thanks to the recently announced GFX100RF. What caught my attention from that camera wasn’t the fixed-lens, the medium format sensor, or the $5,000 price tag. It was the new “aspect ratio dial”.
This seems to be part of a new trend with Fuji cameras. Just a few months earlier, the X-T50 was the first to introduce a dedicated “film simulation dial”.
I celebrate when a manufacturer tries something new, but I can’t help but wonder what these new dials might be revealing about the times we live in.
Are photographers nowadays switching aspect ratios and film simulations so often that they need a dial for quick access?
It feels like a reflection of the modern creative mindset: constantly changing things, never sticking with something long enough to master it. There’s always a new, shiny trick that promises to change the game. Except it never does.
I’m starting to feel old-school when I advocate for consistency: the value of committing to a tool, a format, or an aesthetic for some time.
If one photo is 3:2 and color while the next is 1:1 and black and white, our work might end up feeling cluttered and directionless. It’s not just about cohesion in a portfolio, it’s about developing a personal vision.
A style doesn’t emerge from constantly switching things. It comes from working within some boundaries, constraints that force us to solve problems through creativity, instead of avoiding them.
Experimentation is good. But there’s a difference between thoughtful evolution and constant indecision. Sometimes, we just need to commit to something.
After months of absence, the fog finally returned to San Francisco last night. One of my favorite subjects in these conditions is the Golden Gate bridge, especially after sunset when the lights glow through the mist. So of course, I grabbed my camera and headed that way.
Oh, how I missed it!
The combination of fog, lights, and the low hum of fog horns echoing through the bay create an atmosphere that gives me goosebumps.
Standing there in those conditions felt similar to last week’s snowstorm in Yosemite, or to the time when Arches National Park became an otherworldly landscape, or to the fairy tale place that is Fanal in the island of Madeira. Those are the times that I live for, the ones that make photography so rewarding.
I’ve photographed the bridge in the fog many times before, and hopefully, I’ll do it many more times. These images never get much traction or attention, but that doesn’t matter: I love making them, being there makes me feel alive, and when I look at them later, the feelings rush back.
I’ll never get tired of photographing scenes that make me feel something. We have to chase what moves us.
I’m currently reading a photography book where the author lists their settings for every image. Normally, I’m skeptical about sharing that information, but an educational book seems like the one place where it might be justified to do so.
Many photographers seem obsessed with this kind of technical data, though. Not just the settings used but camera, lens, film stock, developing recipe, even the paper used for the final print. It’s not uncommon to see this information attached to photographs on social media; and even worse, in photo books.
The usual argument made for this is that it helps others learn how the image was made. But what do we really gain from knowing that a heavily compressed Instagram photo of a distant mountain was taken at f/7.1 and 1/250s?
If we truly want to offer insight into how an image was made, there are far more useful details we could share instead: Where and when was the image taken? Do those conditions happen often, or was it a rare occurrence? Tell me more about the story behind the shot: Why did you go there? Did you hike for hours, or did you pull over on the side of the road? If it was a hike, was it easy, or hard? What about the crowds? Seeing the original, unedited RAW file alongside the final image would also provide far more value. And most importantly: how did you feel when you were shooting your subject?
If the goal is to teach and inspire, this kind of information is infinitely more valuable than a list of settings.
Don’t get me wrong: settings matter. But most photographs could have been taken with different settings and they’d still look nearly the same. Because what truly shapes an image isn’t the aperture or shutter speed--it’s the light, the conditions, and the story told in the frame.
So why do we fixate on the settings?
I think it comes down to photography’s eternal struggle to be seen as an art. Some photographers might believe that sharing technical choices makes their work look more intentional, more serious, especially to those who don’t even know what they mean. The settings are the “secret ingredients” that the artist came up with to make the final result possible.
But photography isn’t a recipe. Greatness isn’t defined by the choice of ISO or shutter speed. A great photographer is insanely curious about the world. They notice what others overlook. They recognize beauty in front of them and know how to translate it into an image. They anticipate a moment unfolding and are ready to capture it.
You can recognize a great photographer not by what they say about their camera gear or settings, but by the passion in their eyes when they talk about their subjects.
