I agree, intellectualism in photography is overrated. I just wish it could be replaced by common sense.

If you cannot think of anything to say that is useful or enlightening about your images, then don't say anything. There are plenty of other people who would love to put words in your mouth.

I seem to walk in the world as two people. The normal everyday-me is as preoccupied, unobservant and oblivious to visual clues as I ever was. Then there is the photographer-me, the one who has a camera in hand and a specific project in mind, and then the world suddenly jumps to life with potential pictures, as if a switch had been thrown in my brain and a different person is looking out of the same eyes.

But there are times when thinking is misplaced, like when taking photographs. You cannot think your way to making photographs; you can photograph your way to clearer thinking.

Photographers have already photographed everything too many times, except cheese.

This is life. It is everywhere, and it is here for the taking. I am alive and I know this, now, in a more profound way than when I am doing anything else. These sights are ephemeral, fleeting treasures that have been offered to me and to me alone. No other person in the history of the world, anywhere in all of time and space, has been granted this gift to be here in my place. And I am privileged, through the camera, to take this moment away with me. That is why I photograph.

I appreciate photographs which celebrate harmony. I don't particularly want to look at chaos. I see enough of that at home.