January’s Self-Portraits

You know what? January was a relatively good month when it came to self-portraiture. I didn’t think that this morning though. This morning I was feeling decidedly morose about the portraits I’d made.

I berated myself for not taking more risks, for not exploring dozens of new editing techniques, for not refining the techniques I’d already learned, and on and on and on. But then I looked back over what I’d produced and realized that actually, what I’d done was enough.

Here are the portraits I’m happiest with, interspersed with some quotes that have had quite the impact on me.

“To me, photography must suggest, not insist or explain.” 
– Brassai

January’s Self-Portraits

“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”
— Ansel Adams

“We are making photographs to understand what our lives mean to us.”
— Ralph Hattersley

“The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don’t have to explain things with words.”
— Elliott Erwitt

“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.”
— Ansel Adams

“Great photography is about depth of feeling, not depth of field.”
— Peter Adams

“It’s one thing to make a picture of what a person looks like, it’s another thing to make a portrait of who they are.”

– Paul Caponigro

“You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”
― Ansel Adams

“When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.”
― Robert Frank

“— How do you make your pictures?
— I don’t know, it’s not important.”
― Henri Cartier-Bresson

What I Was Listening To While Putting Together This Post