Out of a need to be more candid and to make these posts a bit more fluid and personal, I wanted to get on here and talk about a topic or idea I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. It’s simply about the frustrations of being a full-time artist who depends on social media and algorithms to make a living from their work.

I was reminded of this idea after watching an interview with Matty Healy (from my favorite band, The 1975) and Joshua Citarella on Joshua's podcast, Doom Scroll. Now, while the whole interview is really great, I recommend watching it if you’re a fan of the band. There is one section in there I can’t quite get out of my mind as a creative person who does creative stuff for a living. It’s the idea that most creative people fall into two categories. One of them is an artist trying their absolute hardest to make a living practicing their medium full-time. The other is someone who has a “normal” job to pay their bills and practices their art on the side in their spare time.

Both options are not great or ideal. What’s even more frustrating is it didnt used to always be this way. I’m only 32, so most of the time I’ve been alive, these two scenarios have been the most common. But you used to be able to do your weird, silly little art and still survive in a big city like NYC, Paris, or London. So many musicians and visual artists throughout the 20th century shared this similar story when they first started practicing their medium. They could live anywhere and scrape enough money together to be around other inspiring artists and communities.

In today’s internet age, we rely on large corporations that have created “platforms” for us to share our work and connect with brands or people who want to pay us to make work for them or buy our prints, paintings, records, etc. But despite all of that, some of us still can’t afford to make a living off of being creative.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that my screentime is embarrassing. They’ve got me addicted just as much as anyone else. But part of being a full-time artist is the constant sense of dread of checking your email, posting on Instagram, and making sure your website is up to date. There are so many checkboxes you have to check off to please the algorithms. We have to wake up every day and share our work, hope the right people see what we’re doing, and make sure people know we are still making cool work all the time. It’s actually exhausting.

Then, when you are on these platforms, you are always tapped into what’s happening in the world. You see ICE agents execute U.S. Citizens in broad daylight for fighting back against the fascist regime they work for. You see a livestream of bombs dropping on the Palestinian people, then you see someone post a “GRWM,” and then the next story is someone on their vacation somewhere tropical. It’s actually insane to see every single day. I do not think our brains were wired to consume this particular kind of bombardment on the platforms we have deemed necessary for success as artists. I’ve thought many, many times about deleting all of my social media to focus on my work and focus on literally anything else. But I actually need Instagram to make a living. I’m just not at that level in my career to not need Instagram.

Then, when you do talk about these horrors you see in the world, you get punished by the algorithm. You then take a break and just share your work like it’s business as usual, and then another horrific new thing will happen. I don’t really know how to fix all of this or what my next move should be, but it’s so incredibly frustrating to rely on these large corporations that can decide every other day whether they want to share your posts with the people who actually follow you on the app.

How did we, as artists, become so reliant on these platforms, and how do we break the vicious cycle of having to carry on as normal despite the world being on fire in every imaginable way?

Is there a future in which artists can live comfortably without having to monetize and sell their talents? Artists need time and space to create and fail, and then experiment some more. But because we are offered so little time outside of work that pays us, we are left with limited time and capacity to create things that aren't for someone else, a brand, or a corporation.

I wanted to talk about this topic because it’s been on my mind for weeks now, and every day I get more and more exhausted from the news. I’m fully aware that it is a huge privilege to even get the opportunity to simply log off and step away from it all. So many people and communities in the United States and abroad don’t have that privilege. In my lifetime, I hope that artists and creatives can make a living without being so tied to these algorithms and platforms designed to keep us addicted to our screens.

So anyways,

Fuck ICE.
Free Palestine.
Fuck these corporations and algorithms that control and decide our fate as artists.

We all deserve the space and time to create the work we want to make.

In my professional life I’ve been absolutely slammed during the Fall and early winter with commercial stuff. Every year around this time it’s unbelievably busy and I am so thankful for that. But the past two weeks I’ve been really taking it easy and spending some time (finally) out on the street making work just for myself.

With all the photobooks I’ve been going through during this downtime I’ve been thinking a lot about how commercial work and working for someone else effects my work as a whole and the commercialization of photography to where I’m trying so hard to nail the technical aspects of a photograph that I think it effects my artistic vision. Obviously this is not something I want and I am trying to figure out how to let some of those technical aspects go when I’m in the moment shooting but there have been so many clients I’ve had this year that have been dream clients for me and all I want to do is make the sharpest, perfectly composed images that they are happy with. And while obviously I can’t deliver a bunch of underexposed, miss-focused batch of images I think I need to loosen up and be able to let my own eye and vision guide me over nailing the technical qualities of a photograph. Self doubt I think is one of the biggest killers of a good images. The moment you overthink or hesitate to make a picture the moment you miss that moment. So much about how I usually work is reactionary and the technical aspects have sometimes gotten in the way of reacting and flowing with a subject or during a commercial shoot/event.

I’m really going to trip this year to not hesitate as much and just press the shutter when it feels right. It’s gotten me this far and I’d much rather have a slightly less composed moment instead of missing the moment completely.

I’m sitting here after walking around Charleston on the most gorgeous January day. The weather is amazing and the streets are still busy. Which is rare for the first week of January typically. So because of all of that, it was a nice day on the street. It has felt so good to get out and make street photos again. I feel so alive.

There are so many times on the street I zone out and I’m just not very locked in, and then something happens and it sucks me right back in. This photograph below was one of those moments that I nearly missed because I wasn’t as locked in as I should have been and nearly missed the picture. But then when I do get that picture it makes all the time spent getting nothing on the street, so so worth it.

Street photography is all about repetition and hours spent just doing it. It’s a numbers game. It’s constant failure and mediocre pictures and then all of sudden, right when you are about to call it quits and go home sometimes magic happens and you’re blessed with a perfect moment. Today was one of those times where I wasn’t really feeling it. The streets were busy but everything was uninteresting.

It’s something you just hope for and sometimes the moment happens right in front of you. It’s a reminder to myself when I’m feeling out of it or just bored by what I pass on the street it usually means something is about to pull me back in and make me wish I was paying a bit more attention.

So I will be back here soon with a ton of new photobooks to talk about and share with you all.

I appreciate you sticking with me on this platform. This year i’m determined to set more realistic expectations for myself. Maybe these newsletters are less formal and more nonsensical ramblings I write on my phone from a busy coffee shop after I spend a few hours on the street. I’m not sure, but regardless I think this newsletter will have a more realistic pace to it.

Much love, Ryan ✌️

Christmas time is great for several reasons. My favorite is when Ariel and I ask our families and each other to get us just books or photobooks. We usually don’t buy many books throughout the year and typically wait until Christmas. So, in today’s newsletter, I wanted to share a few photobooks I picked up and all of the ones that were given to me recently. Let’s jump into it.

Every time I share photobooks in this space, I encourage you to seek these books out for purchase either directly from the artist, their publisher, or an independent bookstore. We can not keep lining billionaires’ pockets by purchasing from Amazon or other similar stores. This is the year to support artists and independent booksellers.

“Advice for Young Artists” by Alec Soth

Between 2022 and 2024, Alec Soth visited twenty-five undergraduate art programmes across the United States. Advice for Young Artists comprises work he made there. Its title – perhaps like the visits themselves – is misleading: rather than wisdom or guidance, Soth offers an angular and unresolved reflection on artmaking at different stages of life and the relations of photography, time, and ageing. The photographs here range from formal studies evocative of the classroom to more unruly works of self-expression. Ambiguous stagings, found forms, and lyrical portraits are interspersed with gnomic quotes and unfinished credos scrawled on Post-its. Among the students, Soth himself appears at intervals, an uncertain sage in their midst.

Inspired by Walker Evans’s late Polaroids, this latest body of work reveals a new expansion of Soth’s practice and a new vantage, twenty years on from the publication of his first book. Recalling the conceit of Broken Manual, it uses an instructional format as a spurious cover for introspection and provocation. As much as a study of the experience of the young artist, this is a reckoning with the prospect of becoming an old one.

I have most of Alec’s books, except for the extremely rare and hard-to-find ones, and I was going to pick this one up eventually. That changed the moment I saw his YouTube video about the work, which I highly recommend watching. Alec is such a refreshing voice in photography, and I go to his YouTube channel often to get a timeline to cleanse my brain and revisit all the wonderful videos he has made.

“Black Country” by Bruce Gilden

During his three week stay back in 2013, Gilden documented overlooked people, factories and homes in the Midlands in order to unveil and study the changing landscape of post-industrialised Britain.

Gilden focused on the neglected and marginalised communities; his goal was to shine a light not only on people who are often ignored in day to day society, but also on the trades and ideals that are slowly fading into history in the UK.

About the design

The design of his new monograph directly draws upon the themes which Gilden investigated whilst producing the work. Bound using stainless steel screws to appear like a factory manual, the book is presented in a beautiful cover printed with silver on black paper, just like those worn doors found in real-life warehouses and factories; inside, instead of machinery, a series of large scale saturated images grab your attention, forcing you to pay full attention to the subjects.

As with Alec, I have most of the Bruce Gilden books you can commonly find. He recently published a new one that I had not picked up yet. The design is unique, with its metal rivets, beautiful silver paper cover, and full-bleed images on different paper types that break up the flow of the book. Foldouts for certain horizontal images can also somewhat fool you into thinking they are two vertical images, side by side. The work, as always, is one of my favorites. There’s nothing like a Bruce Gilden book to flip through.

“Modern Color” by Fred Herzog

Fred Herzog is known for his unusual use of color in the 1950s and 1960s, a time when art photography was almost exclusively associated with black and white imagery. The Canadian photographer worked almost exclusively with Kodachrome slide film for over 50 years, and only in the past decade has technology allowed him to make archival pigment prints that match the exceptional color and intensity of the Kodachrome slide. In this respect, his photographs can be seen as a pre-figuration of the New Color photographers of the seventies. This book will bring together over 230 images, many never before reproduced, and will feature essays by acclaimed authors David Campany and Hans-Michael Koetzle. Fred Herzog will be the most comprehensive publication on this important photographer to date.

There are a few photographers who set the tone for color photography to be an acceptable form of art in the 1950s, 1960s, and beyond, but Fred was a pioneer in color photography. This book is unbelievable, and the way he uses light and color is stunning. Very few photographers have made color work as good as this. Highly recommend.

“A Long Arc — Photography and the American South”

Collects over 175 years of key moments in the visual history of the Southern United States, with over two hundred and fifty photographs taken from 1845 to present. The South is perhaps the most mythologized region in the United States and also one of the most depicted. Since the dawn of photography in the nineteenth century, photographers have articulated the distinct and evolving character of the South’s people, landscape, and culture and reckoned with its fraught history. Indeed, many of the urgent questions we face today about what defines the American experience—from racism, poverty, and the legacy of slavery to environmental disaster, immigration, and the changes wrought by a modern, global economy—appear as key themes in the photography of the South. The visual history of the South is inextricably intertwined with the history of photography and also the history of America, and is therefore an apt lens through which to examine American identity. A Long Arc: Photography and the American South accompanies a major exhibition at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, with more than one hundred photographers represented, including Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Gordon Parks, William Eggleston, Sally Mann, Carrie Mae Weems, Dawoud Bey, Alec Soth, and An-My Lê. Insightful texts by Imani Perry, Sarah Kennel, Makeda Best, and Rahim Fortune, among others, illuminate this broad survey of photographs of the Southern United States as an essential American story. Copublished by Aperture and High Museum of Art, Atlanta.

My friend Steven, the only person I trust to print my work that I sell and exhibit, recently gifted me this phenomenal book. He viewed this insane exhibition in Richmond and brought the book back to me. I am so glad I get to experience this work in a tangible way at home. This work is so moving, and it sticks with you over time. It lingered in your brain for days after my first flip through of the book.

“Hafiz” by Sabiha Cimen

Sabiha Cimen spent three years photographing Girl Quran Schools in five cities in Turkey, a subject that she knows very well since she attended the same schools when she was a teenager with her twin sister. After becoming a photographer, she returned to those schools to work on her project that has now become the subject for her first book.

The title Hafiz refers to one who has memorized all 604 pages of the Holy Quran. Historically the task of memorization began during the time of Muhammad. The individual process can take up to four years and is usually done by girls ranging in age from eight to nineteen. Turkey has thousands of Quran schools.

This world has never been captured with so much intimacy before, as only Sabiha can do, because she is part of this culture. Every photo reveals a different aspect and gives us a deeper understanding of the daily life and the dreams of these girls.

I flipped through this book nearly every time I was in New York since it came out and never pulled the trigger on it. It has been on my list since. Ariel picked this up for me, and I am so excited about it! The 99 medium-format color photographs are like a pastel dream. The book is beautifully designed and printed, and when you’re flipping through it, it’s like watching a coming-of-age film. So glad to have this in my collection.

“From Dust” by Boris Apple

I met Boris one gorgeous day while photographing on Fifth Avenue in NYC when I took a week-long workshop with Bruce Gilden in 2022. Within minutes of talking with him, I felt like I met a lifelong friend. His work has constantly inspired me since we bumped into each other that day. He is nearly exclusively a black-and-white street photographer and this is a small book of that work. The design and layout are really great and unique, with these partial foldouts that reveal some fun details within each of the photographs that have one of these folds. I highly recommend scooping one up if you can; I’m sure only a handful of copies are available (if that).

“American Photographs” by Walker Evans

“Walker Evans: American Photographs was first published by The Museum of Modern Art in 1938 in a carefully prepared, deluxe letterpress edition to accompany an exhibition of photographs by Evans that captured scenes of the United States in the early 1930s.

It has been out of print for long periods since 1938, and subsequent editions—two of which altered the design and typography of the book in small but significant ways—are often unavailable outside libraries and rare-book stores. This seventy-fifth-anniversary edition re-creates the original as closely as possible with the aid of new digital printing technology, making the landmark publication available for a new generation.

More than any other artist, Walker Evans invented the images of an essential America that we have long accepted as fact, and his work has influenced not only modern photography but also literature, film, and visual art in other mediums.” — Essay by Lincoln Kirstein

There’s not much more I can say bout this highly influential work of Evans made in the 1930s. But I’m just very glad to finally have this iconic book that shaped the medium of photography to this day.

“William Eggleston’s Guide”

In 1976, William Eggleston's Guide was the first one-man show of color photographs ever presented at The Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum's first publication of color photography. The reception was divided and passionate. The book and show unabashedly forced the art world to deal with color photography, a medium scarcely taken seriously at the time, and with the vernacular content of a body of photographs that could have been but definitely weren't some average American's Instamatic pictures from the family album. These photographs heralded a new mastery of the use of color as an integral element of photographic composition.

For this second edition of William Eggleston's Guide, The Museum of Modern Art has made new color separations from the original 35mm slides, producing a facsimile edition in which the color will be freshly responsive to the photographer's intentions. Bound in a textured cover inset with a photograph of a tricycle and stamped with yearbook-style gold lettering, the Guide contained 48 images edited down from 375 shot between 1969 and 1971 and displayed a deceptively casual, actually super-refined look at the surrounding world.

Despite William Eggelston being one of my biggest influences, this is my first Eggleston book (I need to work on that, I know). But this is a tightly edited book of stunning color photographs. This year’s haul really leaned into collecting work from the godfathers of color photography, and I’m here for it. Just get this book; it’s nearly essential for every photographer to have a look at this important work.

I was recently asked about my top 5 favorite photobooks on Instagram and it hit me that I have never made a list like that. This is crazy because I take the top 4 on Letterboxd very seriously and I try asking that question to as many people as possible.

I wanted to share my top 10 favorite photobooks because it was too difficult to include only five. This list is in no particular order, and it focuses on how the work impacted me in book form.

1. “The Canaries” by Thilde Jensen

The Canaries series is a personal account of life on the edge of modern civilization as one of the human canaries, the first casualties of a ubiquitous chemical and electrical culture.

Since World War II the production and use of synthetic petroleum derived chemicals has exploded. We live in a world today where man-made chemicals are part of every breath we take and where electromagnetic emissions are everywhere.

As a result it is believed that 2-10% of the human population worldwide has developed a disabling condition referred to as Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) or Environmental Illness (EI). EI is a condition in which the immune and central nervous systems go into extreme reactions when exposed to small amounts of daily chemicals like perfume, cleaning products, car exhaust, printed matter, construction materials or pesticides.

When the delicate balance of life first has been broken there seems no end to how sensitive we can become. In addition to chemicals some react to food, electromagnetic fields, textiles and even light - making life a near impossibility.

Many people with EI end up living as refugees in remote areas out of tents, cars, or retro-fitted trailers, away from the dangers of a chemical and electrical world which they no longer can inhabit. Others are prisoners of their homes, with advanced air filtration systems to keep contaminants out of their breathing space.

At the core of the bizarre appearance of Environmental Illness is a questioning of the sanity of a human world continuing to develop in a manner that is toxic to life itself.

I know I said this list was in no particular order, but this book is special to me. I first flipped through this book when I was in art school and a professor of mine brought it in a bunch of books for us to look through. It was kind of my first real introduction to how brilliant photobooks can be and how the book itself can impact the way the work impacts you. The whole books comes wrapped in tin foil, which, once you flip through the work, makes the work very very real and tactile. Years later I tried to find this book but I couldn’t remember the book title or photographer. I searched and searched for hours trying to figure out what the book was but never could. Somehow my lovely wife managed to find it after I couldn’t and got it for me for Christmas one year. This was me opening it and realizing that she actually found it after all these years. This book still to this day is one of my favorite objects I own. Can’t recommend it enough.

2. “Sleeping by the Mississippi” by Alec Soth

Sleeping by the Mississippi by Alec Soth is one of the defining publications in the photobook era. First published by Steidl in 2004, it was Soth’s first book, sold through three print runs, and established him as one of the leading lights of contemporary photographic practice. This is the second printing of the MACK edition and includes two new photographs that were not included in the Steidl versions of the book.

Evolving from a series of road trips along the Mississippi River, Sleeping by the Mississippi captures America’s iconic yet oft-neglected ‘third coast’. Soth’s richly descriptive, large-format colour photographs present an eclectic mix of individuals, landscapes, and interiors. Sensuous in detail and raw in subject, Sleeping by the Mississippi elicits a consistent mood of loneliness, longing, and reverie. ‘In the book’s 46 ruthlessly edited pictures’, writes Anne Wilkes Tucker in the original essay published in the book, ‘Soth alludes to illness, procreation, race, crime, learning, art, music, death, religion, redemption, politics, and cheap sex.’

Like Robert Frank’s classic The Americans, Sleeping by the Mississippi merges a documentary style with poetic sensibility. The Mississippi is less the subject of the book than its organizing structure. Not bound by a rigid concept or ideology, the series is created out of a quintessentially American spirit of wanderlust. Sixteen years since the book was first published, the artist’s lyrical view has undoubtedly acquired a nuanced significance – one in which hope, fear, desire and regret coalesce in the evocative journey along this mythic river.

This was another book that my professor brought in that day alongside “The Canaries,” and to this day the work has been so impactful to me and the book is equally as gorgeous. I have nearly all of Alec’s books and this one really has stood the test of time as my favorite.

3. Encampment, Wyoming: Selections From The Lora Webb Nichols Archive 1899-1948

Extraordinary, lyrical Encampment, Wyoming: Selections from the Lora Webb Nichols Archive 1899-1948 features Nichols’ own work and the images by amateur photographers she collected in the early 20th century as the proprietor of a photofinishing business in southern Wyoming. Culled from over 24,000 photographs, the book provides a dynamic visual window into the social, domestic, and economic aspects of the American Western frontier and captures an elusive sense of place through the images of this community of friends, families, and strangers.

I looked through this book again last week and was blown away by just how incredible this work is and the sequencing. What may be even better than the photographs, surprisingly, is some of her diary entries and the text describing her life and career as a working photographer. It’s extremely relatable to me as a fellow working freelance photographer. I cannot recommend this book enough!

4. “As it may be” by Bieke Depoorter

Magnum photographer Bieke Depoorter has traveled to Egypt regularly since the beginning of the revolution in 2011, making intimate pictures of Egyptian families in their homes. In 2017, she revisited the country with the first draft of this book, inviting others to write comments directly onto the photographs. Contrasting views on country, religion, society, and photography arise between people who would otherwise never cross paths. The included booklet features all of the handwritten notes in the original Arabic as well as the English translations. As it may be depicts a population in transition with integrity, commitment, and respect.

Bieke has such a poetic and intimate way of photographing, and her book-making and design choices are so thoughtful that it makes it such a pleasure to experience her work this way in book form. This one in particular has such a great squishy outer cover that feels amazing to hold and the included booklet really brings so much context to the work.

5. “PICKPOCKET” by Daniel Arnold

PICKPOCKET: The first monograph of the work of New York-based photographer Daniel Arnold. Pickpocket is comprised of a "Prestige Edit" titled The Woods, and five additional "Alleyways" – GALA, Cell Out, Fuck Ups, 47th Street, and ElseWhere. With liner notes by Daniel Arnold and an afterword by Josh Safdie.

Designed by David Rudnick, Emiel Penninckx, Maharani Yasmine Putri and Mozes Mosuse in Terrain, the book features varying paper types and sizes that make it feel like a larger edit of Daniel’s most known work, stuffed with smaller zines mixed throughout. Everything about it is gorgeous and I’m extremely lucky to own a copy of this rare book. Daniel is legitimately one of my favorite working street photographers and the work in this book is truly extraordinary.

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6. “Wild Flowers” by Joel Meyerowitz

This new and expanded edition of Joel Meyerowitz’s widely acclaimed photobook, Wild Flowers—now, in a larger format, features new and unpublished images. For nearly forty years Joel Meyerowitz has tended his visual garden in the streets and parks and cities he has visited or lived in. He goes out into the streets open-eyed and passionate, carrying a machine which is perfectly suited to the task of taking it all in. The Leica, as quick as the flick of an eyelash, effortlessly interrupts time, stopping and holding it forever. These walks gave shape to new territory for him, which he began to think of as a garden that reflected the variety of his observations. Then, one day, while editing, Meyerowitz stumbled upon a small group of these flower photographs which he had gathered unknowingly. He began to believe that this innocent premise might be enough to tie together many of his other photographic concerns under the nominal subject of ‘flowers,’ which, given the surprises of city life, he viewed as flowers gone somewhat berserk—and so Wild Flowers was born.

Wild Flowers is particularly inspiring because I love the idea of collecting these pieces of work from years apart and pairing them together later down the road. There are always things on the street that I’m on the lookout for that I’d love to turn into a book one day. Joel executes this idea so brilliantly in Wild Flowers.

7. “Pictures From Home” by Larry Sultan

First published in 1992 to wide critical acclaim, Pictures From Home is Larry Sultan’s pendant to his parents. Sultan returned home to Southern California periodically in the 1980s and the decade-long sequence moves between registers, combining contemporary photographs with film stills from home movies, fragments of conversation, Sultan’s own writings and other memorabilia. The result is a narrative collage in which the boundary between the documentary and the staged becomes increasingly ambiguous. Simultaneously the distance usually maintained between the photographer and his subjects also slips in an exchange of dialogue and emotion that is unique to this work.

It’s Larry Sultan. I’m not sure what else to say. Flipping through this is like flipping through your dreams. Abstract but still grounded in reality. It's bizarre and hilarious. Beautifully sequenced and designed.

8. “Winogrand Color” by Gary Winogrand

Garry Winogrand is known primarily for his spontaneous and energetic street photography in black and white. What is lesser known is that Winogrand also shot more than 45,000 color slides between the early 1950s and late 1960s. These photographs were often taken between assignments, when the photographer, working on his own, developed and refined an approach to his medium that was increasingly open, independent, and radical. He routinely photographed with two cameras strapped around his neck, one loaded with color film, the other with black and white.

This is, unfortunately, the only Winogrand book I own, but man is this work top-tier. Every time I flip through this book my jaw is on the floor. If you want to see someone who was a master of his craft, this book proves that it doesn’t get much better than Winogrand. The book’s pacing and flow are fantastic. Gorgeous prints and the book has an amazing feel to it.

9. “Only God Can Judge Me” by Bruce Gilden

"As I travelled through America, I noticed the same pattern in many cities: in all the bad areas, I saw white women, generally young and at one time generally pretty, who were drug addicts — and I’m talking serious heroin or crack addicts. Many of them admitted they were sex workers and in many instances they looked like a shell of themselves. This struck me very deeply bringing back memories from my youth.

In all of these women, I see my own mother — ravaged by pharmaceutical drugs, alcohol and her lifestyle — so I went to these areas where they hang out and I started asking them if I could photograph them.?? This personal motivation is the genesis of my ongoing project Only God Can Judge Me on prostitutes and drugs. I went back again to photograph some of these women in Overtown, Miami and I interviewed them. It’s hard to imagine how much suffering and how little hope their stories contain. We ignore them but they do exist and survive at the “other end of the spectrum” as Trish says.

I want to continue this project and attract attention to them and to what drugs did to them. It’s always interesting when people say that they have trouble looking at these faces. This can happen to anyone’s loved one. Just imagine you have to look at your mother’s face."

-Bruce Gilden, 2018

I love this work and I love Bruce. I know Bruce can be extremely polarizing but I have such a deep respect for him. I attended a workshop with him in 2022 in NYC and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. In the workshop, he talks about this story and how he sees his mother in these women and I think just that little bit of context gives so much power to this work. From the outside, I think this work is extremely misunderstood and is viewed as explorative but it’s far from that. Bruce gives these people a voice and he listens to them when no one else has. The work is brutal and heartbreaking yet it’s extremely beautiful. I have a lot of books from Bruce and I debated on adding several others to this list but I landed on this one because of the way the text and image work together. Most images are full-bleed on one side with most of them having pull quotes from the person on the opposite page. The short piece of accompanying text next to the image makes this book stand out from others from Bruce. It gives that tiny bit of context to the work and the text is extremely powerful. As with most of Bruce’s books, this one is very well-designed and a great object to hold.

10 “God Inc I & God Inc II” by Carl De Keyzer

In 1990, Carl De Keyzer’s seminal project God Inc interrogated the powerful grip of religion over the United States. Completed over the course of one year, De Keyzer relocated to America with his wife and child in a campervan he had bought for the trip and dedicated himself to documenting the influences and manifestations of the church around the country. Observing everything from the most routine and ordinary expressions of faith to the spectacles of Christian plays and KKK rallies, the project documented the often-bizarre rituals associated with, as well as the politics underlying, religion in a context where faith has existed in its most commodified form in the world.

In 2019 and 2020, De Keyzer returned to the USA to update the project. He was interested in how, over the last 30 years, technology and new practices of religion had helped or hindered the US’s relationship with God. His findings are now published in a new edition of the project, represented in two-parts, God Inc I and God Inc II, which also reveal 27 previously unpublished photographs from the original trip.

Here, we share extracts from philosopher Johan Braeckman’s introductory text for the new publication, which poses the question of why exactly humans are driven by an urge to believe. The text is accompanied by images from both parts of De Keyzer’s book: color images from God Inc II, made in 2020, as well as previously unpublished images from God Inc I.

This book also had my jaw on the floor every single time I looked through it. The work is truly unbelievable and how he was able to get access to some of these places is truly impressive. As someone with deep religious trauma, this book hits extremely close to home. I don’t want to say much more about this book because I highly encourage you to pick up a copy if this subject matter interests you. Every page is a surprise. Every sequence is stunning.

Thanks for reading this far. I hope you discovered a new photobook or two. I cherish every single book on this list and there are so many more I could have included. Maybe I will do an honorable mention list in the future. I’d love to share more photobooks in the future in this newsletter. If you liked this email/format please let me know. I want to do more like this but I’m trying to dial in how to share books through this newsletter. Would love any feedback you may have!

If you can buy/find any of these books, please buy from the artist’s website (if available) or an independent bookstore/publisher. Please don’t buy any of these from Amazon.

I turned 31 this month, and it still feels weird to be in my 30s, but here we are. Last August was filled with changes. I went full-time with my photography, turned 30, and then went to Paris for three and a half weeks. It was just a whirlwind, and there was so much I had to adjust to. So now, being a year into a fully freelance life, I’ve felt more confident going into the fall than last year. I now know when to expect the slow months and what months will be insane. When I reflect on the past year and the commercial work I made, I never would have guessed how much fun I would have photographing events and having that be a big portion of my commercial work. When I go to an event lately, I notice how quickly I get into the groove of things and how quickly I feel confident getting close to strangers, especially popping the flash off close to people. I was still so intimidated this time last year, and it would take a while for me to get into the groove of things. It’s an incredible feeling to see yourself grow and become more confident in your practice.

NYC 2024

So Ariel and I went to NYC in June, and it was an absolute blast (as always). We drank a ton of wine, ate an insane amount of pastries, and had our fair share of our favorite NYC slices. Getting back on 5th Ave for a few hours felt like home. It was good to be back. So here are a few of my favorites from shooting around NYC.

Some new Commercial Work

I finally bought a Profoto strobe—a beer can-sized A2. I wanted this mainly for events, to remove my flash from my camera, and to be able to move my strobe around to light people a bit more dynamically. But it’s already come in handy and proven to be a pretty worthy investment based on this first time using it. I feel like this has opened up a whole new world of possibilities with my work, and I’m so excited to learn how to use this flash more and more. My favorite coffee shop in town, Babas, asked me to photograph their catering. The shoot was in a new office building in town, so I wanted this to be full of energy and life and not so stale as we all know an office environment could be. So I wanted these to have a harsh bare bulb look but slightly off-camera to make it more dynamic.

These were all made only using my Profoto A2 and my Leica SL2-S with a 24-70 mm f/2.8 lens.

I’ve already reached the email length with this one, but I’ll be sure to share some more recent commercial work and maybe some new street work if I can find the motivation to get out in this 90 degree heat. We’ll see.

Talk soon, I promise.

I wanted to start off by saying that I hate that I haven’t been as active on here as I would like. Learning my new rhythms as a freelancer has been tough, and I’ve honestly been really busy editing, shooting, and getting everything I need done for my upcoming solo show.

I wanted this to be a much more regular newsletter but I also wanted to be out on the streets photographing more regularly as well. With a lot of my shoots and events happening on the weekends, it’s been tough to find that rhythm. I think I want to set better expectations for myself and for the people that read this newsletter. A lot of what we put online can become a chore once it is forced into a certain time frame or schedule, and that’s the opposite feeling that I wanted when creating newsletters. So I think I need to evaluate the structure or the goals of this newsletter moving forward.

But now to get to the really exciting topic that I wanted to talk about. Tomorrow I’m going in to hang my very first solo show that is happening at Public Works Art Center right here in Summerville. I’ve had this project in the works for years after my grandfather passed away in 2018, and I inherited his photo archive. To get to the point where tomorrow I‘m going to hang his beautiful photographs is so surreal to me.

To give a bit more context about the work and the show, I’ll start by giving you a bit of backstory on how I became a photographer myself. When I was around 13 years old, my grandfather gave me a 35mm SLR camera and taught me how to use it. Throughout my entire life, though, he always had a camera near him, and he documented everything. He photographed interesting things he would see out in the world, our family, my grandmother, everything really. Whether it was subconscious or not, his relationship with photography had a huge impact on me and how I fell in love with the medium. To this day, I feel the impact of his work, and his vision continues to show itself through my own photographs. And the fact that he documented every aspect of his life is something I can deeply relate to. He was a collector, and I feel like photography was an extension of that. That idea of collecting moments as a way to reflect on later is something I do daily.

This show is a collaboration with his slide film, which I inherited after he passed, and the similarities I found while going through these hundreds of slides.

I wanted to talk briefly about the editing I did for this particular show and how the work I ended up printing was honestly not what I had expected. There are way more recent photographs of mine from France than I ever thought would be in the show. But I feel so confident in the edit, and I’m so excited to finally show these 18 photographs in print.

This edit has a lot of very obvious visual similarities in the work that I was conflicted with at times. I never want to spoon-feed the audience into thinking or feeling a certain way. I like interpretation and discovery when viewing new photography work, and I like when multiple people take away completely different things after viewing a show or a photobook. I think that’s one of the most powerful things about this medium.

For instance, the pair below felt too obvious at first. But the longer I sat with some of these pairs, the more I realized that I’m not really spoon-feeding the audience; I’m showing how his vision really comes through in the work I make today. It’s so subconscious to see so many obvious pairs, whether graphically like the one below or more conceptually like his work from Taiwan, which felt like work I would make on the street if I were in his shoes.

Once I shook off that mindset of being too obvious, my entire sequence changed from wanting to include only all my favorite street photographs from the past five years and only print what I consider my best work to thinking about the concept of his vision coming through in my work regardless of subject matter. So, I ended up including photographs like this one below.

It’s just one of those photographs I made to remember a very, very happy time in my life. Being on this rooftop pool in Marseille, having it all to ourselves, and just being so happy with Ariel at that moment. I wanted to preserve that feeling forever. I realized this was what I was chasing. This was never going to be in my final selection, but to me, it resonates with the same feeling I got when he traveled around the world with my grandma. He would simply document where they were or what they were doing, and I wanted to show that same aspect of my own work that I make of/with Ariel.

I felt so free and happy when I made these shifts in mindset because these selections allowed me to communicate the aspect of this project that I’ve always wanted to share with others: the celebration of photography as a way of documenting moments in time and how everything in our past influences what we make today.

I have to believe that his work has subconsciously spoken to me since I discovered it, and I have to believe that everything we experience and ingest has some impact on the current work we make.

So I learned a lot through this process and through every decision I made about the sequence, the size of the prints, how they were going to be framed, what the flow of the room might be, what to emphasize, and what to let subtly speak. Everything we do as artists could be refined, especially looking back on the work, but this process has taught me to loosen my grip on perfection and allow the ideas and concepts that I wanted to communicate to guide me above all else. To simply celebrate the beauty of photography and not get hung up on perfection, but to showcase how one artist can impact another decades later.

So, with all that said, I’d love to invite anyone in the Charleston area to come to see the work. Public Works is an amazing gallery! I am so fortunate to show this project for the first time in this space. They are a free-to-the-public non-profit art center that truly does so much for the local arts community.

The opening reception is on May 16th (this Thursday) and starts at 5:30 PM.

I would love to see you there, and I would love to show you this work in person. xoxo

I thought this was a very normal thing that photographers did, but I’ve learned recently that this is a lot less uncommon than I thought. Which truly shocked me. It sends shivers down my spine, thinking about if I didn’t have access to a certain set of photos from years ago. Even if I never do anything with them, I like knowing that I could.

There have been plenty of instances when I remember a set of photographs and pull them up and take a look, and then suddenly discover there were a few of the RAW files I never edited at the time but end up really liking upon the second, much later, viewing.

So, let’s back up a little bit. Time can be an editor even a day later, or a week later. When I was in art school, the professor who taught me nearly everything I know gave us an assignment where I shot the image below, and I thought this image was the best one of the set. Like by a lot. To the point where I was fighting for my life in that critique. But her biggest critique was that the horizon line was hitting her at a bad spot. It went too much through her neck.

She then asked to see all of the outtakes, and I was not happy about it. I thought there was no way there was a better version of this photograph from the set…

But then she pulled this one up (below) and said this one was a lot better than the photograph above. At the time, I still didn’t believe it, and I agreed to disagree. it wasn’t until 5 or 6 years later that I randomly came across the set again on my old hard drive and thought, you know what… she was right. Not only was the horizon line better, but the sky was also better. Like she said. This time, there was more texture in the sky, and the horizon line went perfectly through her eye line.

So I bring this story up because it was a light bulb type of moment where I realized photography and the things you create could evolve and mean something different to you weeks, years, or decades later. I think this reinforces my theory that I can not delete any of my photographs. Even if I’d made dozens of better photographs since then, this exercise wouldn't have taught me this lesson otherwise.

I was gifted this incredible book for Christmas that Apurture put out called “Street Photography and the Poetic Image” written by two of my favorite photographers, Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb. There is a section in the book titled “Time as an Editor,” and I reinforced this theory yet again.

Time is often the best editor. How you perceive your work the day after you photograph is very different from a week later, and significantly different from three weeks later-or three months. Time helps get rid of those sentimental attachments to a photograph: "I really liked this person I photographed so the picture must be good" or "I worked very hard on this picture so it must be successful." Time gives you the distance necessary to see the work more clearly.

In early 2001, after twenty-six years of photographing along the U.S.-Mexico border, I finally felt ready to put the project to bed. I selected what I thought were my most successful photographs from many trips over the years, starting with black-and-white images from the 1970s to my final trip in 2001.

As I played with the little prints-pairing them, sequencing them, seeing just how they spoke to one another and how they spoke to me—it became clear that a photograph was missing. I remembered one I'd taken of a group of Mexicans I'd traveled with as they illegally crossed into California. I'm not sure why l'd largely ignored this photograph twenty-two years earlier. Looking back, perhaps I was so close to the age of these young Mexican men that I couldn't perceive their vulnerability as I do now. — Alex Webb

He obviously summarized this exact theory much better than I could, and he has the advantage of having decades in between his work that really separates things by a few more years than I can, but still, I think it’s an important lesson.

If you are one of the people who don’t keep everything, I’d love to hear the reason why. In the year 2024, hard drive storage is so cheap, even from a decade ago; that’s a big reason that I really can’t wrap my head around why you wouldn’t keep everything. Whether that be deleting old sets altogether or deleting “outtakes” of new work you make and then only editing the “intakes.” It seems so bizarre to me, but I’d love to start a discussion on this.

Another angle to this topic is allowing your work to breathe when you’re actively working on it. I am generally a very impatient person. That’s a big reason I switched to mainly shooting digital on the street. Because when I get home I want to immediately look at the photographs I made. I needed to reassure myself that it was worth walking for miles and sweating in the South Carolina heat. Obviously, that’s the wrong mindset to have, but it’s the thought I often have when I get home. What I’ve tried to do more of is simply drop the photographs from my camera onto my desktop and not look at them for a while. I have a good number of photos I’ve made from the past few months that I’ve yet to look at.

I think using time as an editor like this will allow you to make better selects to begin with. With street photography, in particular, there is so much adrenaline and emotion involved when making photographs that when you nail something technically or capture a moment that was gone in a split second, you frame it correctly, or whatever it is, it’s so easy to say “now that was it.” As photographers have been saying for decades, getting something technically right does not make it good, and capturing a moment that was difficult to capture also doesn't make it good. But it’s easy to carry a lot of emotional bias to certain street photographs because we always want that one trophy from the day to show off or pat ourselves on the back for capturing.

But using time as an editor, the further you’re detached from certain moments or people, the better you can objectively see if that photo falls flat or if it hold up. Maybe a few months later that photo is still good.

I even try to do the same with client work. Usually, I do my selects pretty quickly after the shoot and then my edits shortly after that, but what I am usually looking for a few days later is the edit. Rarely do I select an outtake from client work that I then want to include in my final selects, but I give the edits and colors a few days to breathe and come back later. I then can see these small flaws that I missed during my first round of editing, or I see things that I want to tweak altogether. It’s been a game changer for me in terms of how happy I am with photographs that I deliver to clients.

So my advice to you today is, please keep your photographs. You never know what you might discover years or decades later when you stumble upon an old hard drive. It’s amazing what time away from your own work could do.

I’ve turned on comments for free and paying subscribers on this post. Let me know you’re thoughts on all this and if you delete or keep everything. I would love to hear from you all.

I often ask myself, especially when I’m out on the street, why do I go out and photograph people? What is it about this specific style of photography that makes me so obsessed and keeps me walking miles and miles? In my opinion, it’s essentially the hardest form of photography because nearly every element is out of your control. All you have is the frame lines to put your subject in and the instinct to press the shutter at the right time. Outside of that, it’s up to the streets to present something interesting, funny, or beautiful for you to document. So, again, why do I subject myself to the torture of street photography? There are so many other pleasant forms of photography that involve a much higher level of control and don’t require an endless amount of miles walked to finally capture something halfway decent or capture nothing interesting at all. The number of days I’ve walked miles and miles in the southern heat only to be left with nothing is too many to count.

But the photos I want to share in this newsletter are part of the reason I think street photography can be so beautiful. It’s the reason I keep going out day after day. Moments like these are where you get a peek into a stranger’s life and wonder what their story is. It’s the best parts of humanity right on display on the sidewalk. It’s beautiful. I love making these pictures.

One thing I've heard all my life about Paris is that it’s so romantic, and to be honest; I thought it was a cliche that was a bit blown out of proportion. But then you get there, and it starts to make sense. There is something in the air, I swear. Or maybe it’s all the wine you drink… I don’t know. But what’s even funnier is you see it while you are out. Every couple is snuggling. In restaurants, park benches, in the middle of the sidewalk, it’s everywhere. But I get it. When you see that, it becomes contagious in a lot of ways.

I’ve photographed couples on the street before; that’s not new to me, but I wanted to share photographs from Paris because I miss this city so much, and I believe it’s the most romantic city I’ve ever been to.

I’ll share more Paris photographs soon, but I wanted to kick it off with some of my favorite couples I saw on the street. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Much love ❤️

This is a question I had to ask myself. Last summer, I was approached by a woman who told me she was interested in collaborating and putting together a solo show of my street work in Charleston. She wanted to bring more contemporary and progressive art to Charleston, and specifically more photography work. Over the past few years, that has been something I have been working on. The problem is that no galleries in town showcase much photography, let alone street photography. The idea of being at the forefront of something new and exciting was precisely what I had been looking for, and here it is. It fell right into my lap. What could go wrong?

Now, this initial offer was highly tempting because all I wanted to do was make the work; I had no interest in trying to market myself or figure out the logistics of putting together a show, but I have to do that; it's just part of it, but if I could have a lot of help with that aspect of it, why wouldn't I take that offer? It seemed like a perfect deal. She had the experience, and her goals lined up with mine.

So I met with her and brought a small portfolio of stuff I wanted to hang in a solo show. So, one day, we met, and the conversation started with her telling me about her background and her career in art up to that point. Ten years ago, she worked at Sotheby's in NYC and would do pop-up style galleries similar to the one she mentioned she wanted to do with my work and how she is now a lawyer here in town. Then the conversation pivoted, and it turned into her pitching me how she wanted to "represent me." She would still do pop-up shows with my work (I think), but most of what she wanted to do now was sell my prints to her audience while taking a 50% commission on all sales. I would exclusively sell my work through her. While in this conversation, it started to feel weirder and weirder the longer she talked to me. I didn't even say much. I was listening to her try to convince me to do this deal with her. When I brought up the photographs I had brought to show her, she hesitantly looked at maybe 6-8 of them relatively quickly and wanted to see more of my work "in black and white." And when I say "see more of my work," I mean she wanted to see the work I had brought, but she mainly wanted to see black and white versions of my entire street portfolio, even if it was shot on color film. It didn't matter; she likes black and white and wanted to see "what all my work looked like in black and white." She told me to send her that folder with all the images, and she would look at them over the weekend. She said she would be building a website for her new company (that would represent me). I said, cool, feel free to share it with me to look it over before it launches; send me the artist agreement paperwork/contract, and I'll look it over. We agreed on all that, and I left the conversation not really getting to show my work or talk about a potential solo show.

I stayed optimistic about the meeting because I would still hopefully get to sell some prints, and the solo show would still happen. So, I sent her small jpegs of my work over the weekend in two folders. One folder was my work, how I originally edited/shot it, and in another, I converted all of my photos to black and white for her to "see." At no point did I agree that that's how I wanted my work presented, but I thought it was more or less a visual exercise for her to see my work differently. Again, this should have been a much bigger flag than I thought it was at the time, but I was trying to stay optimistic, and I wanted this whole situation to work out, so I didn't overthink it. Then, on Monday afternoon, I got a notification on Instagram for her newly created art page showcasing my work and how she exclusively represents me. She also used only the black and white photos I sent her. I saw on Instagram that the site was live, so I clicked on the link and saw my work, edited in B&W, displayed on the website. Another important aspect of this website is that I'm the only artist on the site. At that point, I still had not seen any contract/agreement or even the website before it launched. Also, my favorite nugget of information is that she is currently a lawyer in town, but didn't think to send a contract before publicly saying she represents me exclusively.

At this point, I knew deep down that this was a bad deal and I should get far away from this situation and this person. So I said I'd love to see that contract soon. After nearly a week, I received a "contract." There were about as many red flags in this "contract" as every time we spoke. It was unbelievable, and there was no way I was signing it.

After I read this contract, we ended up on a call where I went through section by section and asked as many questions as possible. She didn't help her case at all, and the more she explained each point, the worse it made it. So, as I was trying to be polite, I was trying to get off the phone and said, "Yeah, give me a day or so to look everything over again and think about everything." That did not go over well, and she said, "What do you need to think about? Like if you want to work with me or not?" I wasn't going to, but I figured it was now or never, and put it bluntly, I didn't think this was the right fit for me and wanted to go our separate ways. The main contributing factor to this decision was that she wanted to present my work only in black and white.

Now, I am fully aware that I not only shoot black and white films occasionally but a percentage of my portfolio is shot digitally and converted to black and white. I will be the first to admit that, and I certainly never denied that fact in any conversation. But the problem I have is that I am mainly a color photographer, and if you're claiming you love my work and want to sell it, shouldn't you believe in my work and how I presented it to you? And shouldn't it be evident that I am a color photographer when I shoot 95% color film and convert only a handful of photos to black and white if I shoot it digitally? It should be evident after taking a 10-second glance at my portfolio. I mean, clearly, I'm not a black and white photographer, right?

At the end of the call, and after I had explained that I wanted to present my work how I wanted to present the work, it could be black and white or color; it doesn't matter. But what I tried to communicate to her was that all artists should have the right to how their work is presented online or physically; that's my humble opinion on the situation. I didn't think that was a radical thought, but it was. In her mind, I was the person out of line in this situation, and I was "ruining" the newly launched art business she had created over one weekend without my approval. I was the sole artist in her portfolio, so if I was out, she was left empty-handed. How a lawyer let a situation like this play out the way it did is beyond me, but regardless, she was very annoyed at the end of this conversation.

You're probably wondering what on earth this story has to do with anything, but I wanted to tell it because it taught me some essential things and reinforced some beliefs I had about being an artist in the first place. This woman wanted to take 50% of all the profits I made. But I still had to do the work and get everything printed, framed, edited, and developed; all she had to do was sell it. In her opinion, color photography couldn't be sold in a fine art setting because it was "too commercial." That was her argument against presenting my work in color. She didn't think she could sell it that way. To me, the biggest red flag in that statement isn't that she wanted to change my photography and my photographic vision but that she doesn't understand the history of the medium itself.

I could sit here and type all day about the dozens of photographers throughout the 20th century who were instrumental in having color photography taken seriously and presented in a way that competed with the traditional black and white photographers at the time. They bridged that gap for us 50+ years ago. There is no need to fight that fight anymore. Color photography is here, and it's been here for decades. People have been using it on the street for decades and decades. It's simply a silly argument to make, proving that you don't understand the history of photography, let alone the medium itself.

The point of this story is not just to tell you about something crazy and hilarious that happened to me but to reinforce the idea that our vision is all we have as artists when it's all said and done. The one thing we must not allow ourselves to give up is our artistic vision.

The small decisions you make as an artist when you create and how you present the things you create are the most powerful tools in your arsenal. It's why people pay you to make work for them or it's why people purchase your art or prints. How you see the world and what you create is uniquely you. It's true when they say, "Everyone is a photographer nowadays." That's a fact because we all have a camera in our pocket. But the critical difference here is that what makes you "you" is how you uniquely see the world.

As a professional photographer, I don't get paid to just press buttons; I get hired to make photographs because of how I make those photographs. People want to hire you to do what you do best, not to show up and press a button with no heart, soul, or intention behind it.

So when I say we have to hold onto our artist vision with everything we have, we have to hold onto it no matter the cost. It's literally all we have when it's all said and done.

Favorites of 2023:

Song:

Justin Vernon — "Hazelton"

This newly released album “Haelton” is Justin Vernon’s haunting pre-Bon Iver LP. The record, an original song titled “Hazelton” and recorded in the mid-2000s for the his third solo album, functioned as the starting point for “Holocene,” the pivotal single from Bon Iver’s second studio album Bon Iver, Bon Iver. I remember listening to the title track for one of the first time when we were on out early morning train ride to Marseille, France. With the sun coming up and cutting through the fog, it was one of my favorite moments listening to music this year. The album is just perfect and it continues to solidifies how Justin is one of my favorite artists and musicians.

Movie:

I saw Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City” in theaters and when I tell you there were very few moments where I didn’t have the biggest smile on my face watching this film. What a pleasure this was to watch in theatre’s. Wes keeps getting better and better and I think, visually this is his most bold. With each new release Wes leans more and more into what makes him stand out from the rest of filmmakers today. The respect I have for his commitment to carry out his unique vision is massive. His films and aesthetic may be polarizing to some, but you can’t deny that his style is one of the strongest and most recognizable out of anyone

TV Show:

The Curse is an American satirical black comedy thriller TV series created and written by Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie, and starring Emma Stone, Fielder, and Safdie. It’s really hard to describe this show because it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. I can’t even express to you how much this show lives in my mind rent free. From the distinct visual look, described by Benny as “realism candid camera: HD at 3200 iso in the world of 4K!” So everything is normally shot extremely far away and really noisy. Here’s a link to a screen test they did that conveys the overall look pretty well. Please go watch this show Fielder and Stone are giving career best perfomances in every single episode. It’s crazy.

Commercial Photo:

This photograph I made of my good friend Sonny, is my favorite commercial photo I made this year. I love this moment so much and another big reason I loive this photo is this is the first commercial set I fully edited with Capture One. With that, I was able to finally nail down a look I’ve been chasing for so long but could never really get with Adobe Camera RAW. The combo of those two things really make this one stand out. Really the whole set from this shoot stands out to me as one of my favorites.

Film Photo:

This photograph is basically an untouched film scan from State Film. It took my breath away when I first got these scans in my email. They nailed it. I really want to print this photograph fairly large. The colors are so gorgeous and the moments we had sitting out on our balcony of our hotel in Marseille are moments I’ll never forget. That place is so special and when I look at this photograph, that same feeling comes rushing right back to me.

Street Photo:

Extremely hard category to nail down, but I chose this one because it’s one of those photos that you take that you never could have dreamed up in your head or anticipated while you’re out. Sometimes a light shines on you and things fall into place. Another funny fact about this is I made this on my M6 with an unbelievably expensive roll of Portra 800. We were out in Paris and we were pretty far from our Airbnb and I was really feeling it and ended up blasting through the roll of Portra 400 pretty quickly, and I left my extra film back at the aparetment. So I quickly Googled film labs near me and found one 100 feet away and picked up one roll of Portra 800 for an absurd price. Luckily I made some of my favorite photos on the street from this trip with that one roll. But I’m so sorry to anyone in Europe that has to pay for those prices, that’s crazy!

Photo of Ariel:

This photo of Ariel I made along with the moment when I made it, is really one of my favorites of the year. We were sitting at our favorite wine bar in Paris, Furia, at our favorite table, on a gorgeous fall evening. What could be better?

Book:

This is a short and easy read, but it certainly is packed with useful conversations from the godfather of street photography. Learned so much from this book of conversations. I read it earlier in the year and it’s probably time to give it another read already.

Moment:

There was something about the city and energy of Marseille that I’ll never forget. Sitting out on these rocks and taking a dip in the crystal clear sea was one of my favorite moments of the year. It was so calm and beautiful that it’s been etched in my brain ever since. I would give anything to experience this exact moment again and again.

Ready for 2024!

Thanks for reading. I hope you had an amazing 2023, and hopefully an even better 2024. Right now I can say I’ve never been happier and so much happened in 2023 and I grew and changed so much (for the better) last year, that I am so excited and hopeful to continue what I started in 2023. Here’s to chasing after being a photographer full time and making the best images of my career this year. This feels like the beginning to a really exciting new chapter.

Much love!

I had high hopes of publishing the newsletter while Ariel and I were in France in September/October, but unfortunately, that didn’t happen. I wanted to focus on making the best work I could on the street while I was there and not worry about editing and publishing at the end of the day. So now that I’m back and I’m starting to get caught up on everything that I had to catch up on once I got back (it was a lot) I can be super intentional with how I share these photos and really do a deep dive into our trip and what I made there. Plus, all of the film I shot on the trip is currently at the lab, so I wanted to wait until I got that back to really start sharing everything.

If you were following along on social media while I was in France, you probably saw that I was hosting a Creator Session with VSCO live on Zoom two weeks after we got back. I have been using VSCO for over a decade now, and to have the opportunity to speak about my story, my work, and my process, all while showing off the amazing Studio on Web that they recently launched, was a dream come true. The support that VSCO has shown me over the years is amazing. I am so thankful for the opportunity to talk about photography and my process while on the street and while editing. The session was amazing and I appreciated everyone who showed up and asked incredible questions. I wanted to share the link to the short write-up VSCO did and the recorded session you can watch on YouTube.

Check out my VSCO Creator Session

In other news, right when we got back, I had the chance to photograph a fantastic local Philipino restaurant, Kultura. I got hired by Eater to make the photographs for their Best New Restaurants of 2023 list. This was, without a doubt, the biggest job I’ve done so far in my career. I am so thankful for the opportunity to do what I love and work with amazing people in my city and make something beautiful together. The crazy part about the whole thing is I couldn’t even tell Kultura what the photos were going to be used for. I could only say Eater hired me for a story on the restaurant.

But I’m really happy with some of these photos; you can check them out in the 2023 list here.

Yesterday, I wrapped up possibly the longest-running shoot I’ve ever done. For the past two weekends, I have been photographing events and author sessions for the 2023 Charleston Literary Festival. I had such an great time at every brunch, party, and session. It truly was a fantastic festival put on by some really great people. Wanted to share a few of my favorite photographs from the first weekend. I don’t have anything from this weekend edited yet.

Thanks for reading and taking a look at some of these recent images. Sorry I haven’t published anything in two months. I have not forgotten about this newsletter at all; quite the opposite. I am excited to share some more stuff in the coming weeks as I finish up photographs from France, get my film scans back, and continue to edit some more recent shoots I’ve done in the last couple weeks.

I would love everyone to check out my VSCO Creator Session if you haven’t already. I’m really proud of it, and put a lot of work into creating that presentation.

Talk soon! ✌️

I wanted to share a few of the beautiful photographs that my good friend Kathleen made of me a few weeks ago. This might be the first time I've ever gone out of my way to schedule another photographer to make my picture. I've always just opted to do it myself. However, I needed an updated headshot because I had to send one in for my first group show at Public Works.

I've been intentionally making work on the streets of Charleston now for around five years, and I finally get to show off 3 of my favorite photographs. It’s something I've been wanting for such a long time, but I have never tried to force it. I wanted to work with people who believed in my vision and understood the work I was making. I didn't want to make any compromises along the way. Timing is so crazy, and seeing things I've wanted for so long happen organically and precisely when they're supposed to has been so cool to watch.

So, if you're reading this and in Charleston, come see my photographs at Public Works from September 15 - November 11. The prints that Imaging Arts Printing made are stunning, and then they were framed by the amazing people at Frametastic.

Also, the first photograph was made on a roll of very expired Portra 160 VC. Shoutout to the amazing folks at State Film Lab for developing and scanning this film. The scans are so perfect.

Below are a few of my other favorites from that day. We shot a fresh roll of Portra 160 as well as some digital stuff where we adapted a very old Leica 50mm Summarit to my Leica M11. We played around a lot, and I'm so happy with all of these portraits. Loved getting weird with it. It reminded me of the good old days, creating a bunch of weird stuff with all your art school friends.

I am very thankful for a friend as amazing and talented as Kathleen.

A quick newsletter update as well.

If you are subscribed to this, I want to say thank you and how much I appreciate you being here. I want to really start publishing some other stuff throughout the month in addition to my weekly street updates. I'm working on a few drafts at the moment that I’m really excited about.

I wanted to take a moment and explain a new perk when you upgrade to a paid subscription. I wanted to provide some value outside of just supporting me through reading and paying for this newsletter. I know a million other things in this world are asking for your support and hard-earned dollars. But if you do choose to support me and my work financially, I want to give back something cool in return. So, after thinking about what I could provide outside of this newsletter, I landed on offering an 8x10 inch open edition print for every paying subscriber. Each year, I’ll choose a new photograph I’m stoked about and either mail it to you or deliver it if you’re local. These prints will still be the same high-quality prints that I’ve been offering in my limited edition cowboy collection, but these will be open edition. It is still going to be printed by Imaging Arts on the amazing Canson Platine Fibre Rag paper and still signed by me. In addition to the print, you’ll also get access to the full post archive.

No pressure whatsoever. If that does sound like something you’d be into, feel free to upgrade to a paid subscription before the end of September, and you’ll get this very first photograph I’ve selected. I’m excited about the photo I selected and can’t wait to get it into everyone’s hands.

If you want to support me without upgrading, you can just share this newsletter with someone. :) That would mean the world and be so helpful as I grow this little community on Substack.

Much love,
Ryan

Refer a friend

The streets seem a lot busier this weekend since the college kids are back and settled in. It was nice. It felt energizing to be out and about on Saturday. Unfortunately, I was experiencing a good bit of anxiety with thinking every time I made a photo there was going to be a negative confrontation. I was getting some flashbacks to that really bad day on the street I had earlier this year. But thankfully nothing happened. As a result, I felt very shy the entire time. I’m honestly surprised I made this many photographs in one day. I thought I would walk away with only making around 5 or maybe I wouldn’t make any? I think the energy of the street helped a lot. I didn’t get to get out today because of car trouble but that’s okay, I was able to get out on Saturday and I’m really happy with these intakes.

Ok, let’s get into it…

Below are my favorite “intakes.” I’ll also share a handful of outtakes that maybe we’re close to working, but didn’t fully come together.

Outtakes

This set below was good enough to show you here in this newsletter, but they fall apart pretty quickly for one reason or another.

Thanks for looking.

I appreciate you subscribing and looking through these images. It means a lot. I’ll try and publish something like this every Sunday (as long as I go out on the street that week).

I wanted to remind you that my limited-edition Cowboy Prints are for sale. Make sure to grab one if you’re into them!

View the collection

It’s a weird time in Charleston when kids are going back to school and summer vacations are over, and college kids are moving back in. The streets are very quiet right now, even on the weekends. Finding interesting things and people while I’m out has been a bit of a struggle, but I’m really happy with these first two intakes. It made going out in this heat so worth it.

I was also able to add some more cowboys/cowgirls, maps, and sweaty people to the “self-assignment” collections.

Ok, let’s get into it…

Below are my favorite “intakes.” I’ll also share a handful of outtakes that maybe we’re close to working, but didn’t fully come together.

Outtakes

This set below was good enough to show you here in this newsletter, but they fall apart pretty quickly.

Thanks for looking.

I appreciate you subscribing and looking through these images. It means a lot. I’ll try and publish something like this every Sunday (as long as I go out on the street to make pictures).

I wanted to remind you that my limited-edition Cowboy Prints are for sale. Make sure to grab one if you’re into them!

View the collection

This week I was only able to get out on Saturday (my 30th birthday as well 🎉). I had an event I was shooting today but I was so worn out from the heat that I decided to just head home afterwards. I hope you enjoy this special 30th birthday edition of the newsletter! This week I continued to search for some “self-assigned subjects” to be on the lookout for. Right now I’m keeping my eye out for extremely sweat-soaked shirts, people looking at maps, ice cream, and cowboys/cowgirls. Over the past two weeks, I’ve been able to add to those collections, which has been fun.

Ok, let’s get into it…

Below are my favorite “intakes.” I’ll also share a handful of outtakes that maybe we’re close to working, but didn’t fully come together.

Outtakes

This set below was good enough to show you here in this newsletter, but they fall apart pretty quickly.

Thanks for looking.

I appreciate you subscribing and looking through these images. It means a lot. I’ll try and publish something like this every Sunday (as long as I go out on the street to make pictures).

I wanted to remind you that my limited-edition Cowboy Prints are for sale. Make sure to grab one if you’re into the collection!

View the collection

Over the past few years as I have started to digitize and go through his archive I’m often thinking in the back of my head; why did he make photographs? My grandfather wasn’t a professional photographer but something inside him compelled him to pick up a camera for decades. He photographed so much of his daily life and once I was born he documented nearly every moment of my life. It’s crazy to see the piles and piles of negatives and the binders of slide film that I have. It’s daunting to go through it all, and yet I still have no idea why he made these pictures.

I put this question out there on social media for people to answer and I wanted to share a few of the responses that I got back:

Simply put, and maybe selfish, it’s the best way I’ve found to be absolutely present in the moment. There’s a ton of reasons and layers and emotions that go with this, but those are part of a more complex and longer conversation - that often I can only have with myself. — @rbardin

As a means to understand myself. Sometimes photography allows me the capture what I feel during the moment as I press the shutter although it does not always translate to the viewer. Personal memento. — @dvdlcy

Photography is not just about capturing beautiful images; its a medium through which I can delve deeper into the complexities of human existence and invite viewers to reflect on their own experiences. — @natybtw

I live in a state of imagination to escape. Taking photos reminds me to look around me and take it all in. — @redactedpride

To preserve the ephemeral. — @itsjackcohen

De-stressing. Artistic outlet. Fun. Way to show the world in my POV. — @brianwhite__

Simply to romanticize life. — @carolinefr80

Ugh because I have to. — @captkathleen

Therapy/self-care, making memories, the whole editing process + more adventures. — @andreafarrelly

Pause and relive moments in time. — @adj.jpg

A big thank you to everyone who responded to this question it was super fascinating and I loved hearing why you pick up a camera. I wanted to put this newsletter out there mainly to share these responses from photo-friends so I’m glad to hear all these different perspectives.

But hearing those responses it was clear to me that this mysterious drive that is inside all of us that call ourselves photographers can be so different. But yet we end up doing the same thing—documenting, preserving, and showing ourselves to the world through our photographs. It can change day-to-day. Some days I don’t even want to pick up a camera. But most days I have this thing inside me that nearly forces me to pick up a camera. I feel obsessive about making pictures. It feels like the only thing I can think of or the only thing I can do when these compulsive feelings come up.

My grandfather was a collector, he had an entire room dedicated to his coin collection. He was truly obsessive about coins and learning about coins and finding certain coins. I think the collector inside of him contributed to him always having a camera nearby him most of his life. I think he wanted to preserve and log moments to look back on and keep stored away in a photo album. I get it, I’m the same way. Especially when every one of us has an amazing camera right in our pocket. If you weren’t born with an obsessive drive to document everything you might have learned it since the introduction of the iPhone. I know it’s only strengthened that feeling to document everything for me.

I’m often torn between wanting to be preset or wanting to collect these artifacts that I can look back on and remember how I felt or what I was doing at the time. And when I say I’m torn because my opinion on this can flip-flop. I could also say that when I’m on the street with my camera in my hand nothing could possibly distract me. I’m fully present and hyper-aware of my surroundings. But the grumpy old man scoffs at kids at concerts while they watch a performance through their iPhone screen instead of focusing on the performance right in front of them. But I literally do the same exact thing every day at any interesting thing happening me.

So I have to ask once again: why do we make pictures?

And then you have to ask yourself, does that answer even matter?

Often times I do pull a camera up to my eye to preserve a moment forever, or to preserve the way I felt when I made the picture. But it might not matter at the end of the day. What matters is that we use the magic of photography to fulfill whatever mysterious thing inside of us that compels us to bring a camera with us or to pull out our phone at any given moment. Photography is beautiful. It’s magical. It still boggles my mind that we have created these little boxes that preserve moments on pixels or with chemical reactions. It’s amazing. We should celebrate the magic of photography and the many many emotions it can stir up inside of us when we see or make a photograph. We should celebrate whatever inner voice is inside of us or that curiosity in us to press the shutter button. Whatever that is, should always be celebrated.

Leave a comment on this post if you want to add anything to this conversation/topic, I’d love to hear from you.

Much love,
Ryan ✌️

This week I was only able to get out yesterday and today because I was laid off from my job on Monday after 8+ years of being there. I’ll save that story for another newsletter but all is well, my mental health has improved dramatically because my previous job was giving me so much stress and anxiety for years. After I processed for a few days, I now feel that a massive weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Now I’m working on transitioning into this new season of pursuing my photography/videography full-time. So if you or anyone you know is looking for a photographer send them my way.

Ok, let’s get into it…

Below are my favorite “intakes” from the past two days and then I’ll share a handful of outtakes that maybe we’re close to working but didn’t fully come together.

Outtakes

This set below was good enough to show you here in this newsletter, but they fall apart pretty quickly.

Thanks for looking.

I appreciate you subscribing and looking through these images. It means a lot. I’ll try and publish something like this every Sunday (as long as I go out on the street to make pictures that week).

Wanted to remind you that my limited-edition Cowboy Prints are still for sale on my website. Got the 1/20 edition of the Shadow Cowboy ready for its new home. Make sure to grab one if you’re into the collection.

View the collection

I had Featureshoot reach out to me recently and asked me about my favorite Leica camera. My response to the questions they asked had to be edited down due to space in the article. I figured I would share all of what I sent over to them in my newsletter.

What is your favorite Leica camera model, and how did you get it?

Even though I mainly shoot digital these days, my favorite camera and first Leica is my Leica M6 Classic. I bought it in 2018 before prices went wild like they are now. It came with a Minolta Rokkor 40mm f2 lens for a great price. So it was a great way to make my jump to Leica.

Does it have a story?

I don't know its entire story, but the camera was made in 1993, the same year I was born. I bought it from an amazing Polish photographer I want to shout out, Adam Wilkoszarski. Since I purchased it from him, we have become acquaintances, and I really admire his documentary/landscape work.

What makes it your favorite?

What makes it my favorite is how it feels the moment you pick it up. It's hard to describe, but if you've held an M6, you'll totally get it. Something about the weight and build of it feels like such an incredibly designed tool. My favorite detail of the camera is that the regular M6 film advance lever had been swapped out for the MP style one, and I love that small detail so much.

What does this camera do that other cameras can't?

Well, first off, the camera works, and it works incredibly well. If I'm shooting on the street, there's no question that a rangefinder camera, built as well as these are, is the perfect tool for the job. I've photographed on the street with several other cameras over the years, and nothing work, for me, as a Leica M camera (film or digital). Its size and weight, paired with being a rangefinder, make it the best tool for the job. I don't stand in one spot while I'm on the street, I'm constantly moving, and most of my photos are made in passing, so I need the quickness of range focusing in the smallest camera I can get, and the Leica M cameras tick all of those boxes.

And what makes it uniquely suited to street photographers specifically?

I sort of answered this in the last question, but what I'm looking for in a camera while I'm shooting on the street is that; it will just work, no matter what. That it's small and compact, and I can make the photograph quickly. Because I've shot with AF digital cameras on the street, and nothing is quicker than stopping down and shooting with a manual focus rangefinder in my experience.

Do you have any tips for photographers who want to get started using this camera?

If you buy a Leica, especially a manual focus camera, practice, practice, practice. I can't stress how important it is to understand how (all) your gear works and become comfortable with it. Constantly practice focusing. Go around your house and set the lens to how far away you think something is, and then pull it up to your eye and see how accurate your guess was. The more you do that, the better you will be at judging distance while on the street. Also, when you are in your city, learn the width of your sidewalks. Know how far away a subject will be if you are on opposite sides of the sidewalk. Being familiar with your environment and your gear will only help you be quicker and more efficient at capturing moments as they happen.

So excited to finally offer a collection of three Cowboy prints as a signed and numbered edition. My friend Steven at Imaging Arts Printing will make the prints for me. The quality of these is stunning, and I love having this collection printed right here in Charleston. Below are the artist proofs. I just got back from him last week, and I love the size and paper type so much.

Print specifications for anyone curious:

– 8 x 10 inch: Edition of 20 + 2AP
– 18 x 24 inch: Edition of 5 + 1AP
– Archival Pigment Print
– Signed and Numbered
– Printed by Imaging Arts Printing
– Printed on Canson Platine Fibre Rag Paper

Paper Info:

Canson Platine Fibre Rag Paper

It has a satin finish similar to older darkroom style papers, a slight tooth to it, natural but bright whites, and has a beautiful sheen that’s perfect for black and white or color photos. This is a great choice for people wanting a satin or luster finish in a fine art, archival certified paper.

• Heavy Weight Fine Art Photo Paper (16 mil, 310 gsm)

• Satin Finish, similar to darkroom papers

• Smooth surface with light tooth 

• 100% Cotton base

• OBA Free, natural white yet still with a good white point

• Archival

It took me a while to get this first collection right, but I love every photograph here so much, and I'm so excited about what I landed on with this collection. This was such an overwhelming process, and it wasn’t something I had done before. Most of the prints I’ve made for people were simply by request and they had a specific image in mind already and I just printed it for them. Or I’ve had my Darkroom store up over the past few years, and people could buy some of the landscapes that I thought might look nice in someone’s home, but I never had much control over the quality of those. It felt like a very hands-off process. So when someone would request a one-off print of a street photograph, for example, and I had Steven print them for me, it was such an amazing experience from start to finish that I wanted to do that same thing while offering a very small and curated collection. This first collection happens to be of cowboys, all taken at the Coastal Carolina Fair over the last five years. I’ve been fascinated with the rodeo, specifically the one that comes to the fair every year. I’d love to photograph it more in-depth one day, but I’m so excited about these three that are part of this collection.

So after the help of a few amazing photographer friends, I landed on offering 20 8x10 inch editions of each and five 18x24 inch prints. The 8x10s will have two artist proofs, and the 18x24s will have one artist proof. I’ve got a lot of exciting things happening in the fall and spring next year (more on that soon), so I needed to get this figured out before all of that can happen.

Click the button below to view the collection and purchase a print if you’d like.

View the Collection

Thanks for reading, and thanks for simply subscribing to this newsletter. I need to get back to sharing more here, but I’ve been so busy to keep up with it.

Talk soon! ✌️

I want to share more of my process on why I choose certain photos that I consider “In” and others that I would consider “Out." All of these photos were fine enough for me to select and to take the time to edit, but most of them I know ultimately will be discarded when it comes down to building upon my current body of street work—especially when I’m tryi…

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