Guy Tal | Photographer, Author
This is a reader-supported, ad-free zone. Please consider becoming a patron.
It seems to me that the most damaging restrictions on an artist’s liberty are self-imposed. So often, what may have begun as fresh thinking and discovery is turned into a routine and reduced to mere habit. Habits in thinking or technique are always stultifying in the long run. They are also contagious, and when a... Continue Reading →
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here—that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse. —Walt Whitman As we know from studies in physics, the state of a given system at any time—past, present, or... Continue Reading →
Whether art and beauty can really make man better and stronger is an open question; but one thing is certain: that like the starry firmament they remind us of light, of order and harmony, and of “meaning” amid chaos. —Hermann Hesse I won’t presume to know what is meaningful to you—in photography or in any... Continue Reading →
To be happy in this world, especially when youth is past, it is necessary to feel oneself not merely an isolated individual whose day will soon be over, but part of the stream of life flowing on from the first germ to the remote and unknown future. —Bertrand Russell For good reasons, many thinkers have... Continue Reading →
I live in a time of fear and the fear is not of war or weather or death or poverty or terror. The fear is of life itself. The fear is of tomorrow, a time when things do not get better but become worse. This is the belief of my time. I do not share... Continue Reading →
Today, I share with you more thoughts on the topic of "aboutness," which I discuss in a couple of my books. As always, I offer these essays free of the annoyances of advertising and paywalls. Still, if it is within your means to contribute as little as a couple of dollars to support this blog—the... Continue Reading →
Camera, camera, what do you do—and I damn your eye, damn your wink, damn your memory—for with all of that you still can’t think. —W. Eugene Smith In 1937, Albert Camus, then just 24 years old, published his fist book under his own name—L’Envers et l’Endroit (variously translated into English as The Wrong Side and... Continue Reading →
I’ll play it and tell you what it is later. —Miles Davis This is a re-edited version of an article originally published in the online magazine On Landscape. If you are not already a subscriber, I recommend it highly. (Note, this is an unsolicited, unpaid personal recommendation, not an advertisement.) ~~~ Ansel Adams spent much... Continue Reading →
It was my great pleasure recently to speak with Grant Swinbourne's as part of his podcast, Landscape Photography World. My thanks to Grant for featuring me and for the excellent questions. Be sure to check out Grant's archives for more interesting conversations, and subscribe to be notified of future ones. (I happen to know at... Continue Reading →
This article is offered in response to an anonymous reader who wrote to say that they “would love to spend more time philosophizing, but who’s got the time?” Have a philosophical question you'd like me to write about? Please don’t hesitate to write. Please note that if you purchase a book from Amazon using one... Continue Reading →