“It is Part of the photographer’s job to see more intensely than most people do. He must have and keep in him something of the receptiveness of the child who looks at the world for the first time or of the traveler who enters a strange country...I believe this power of seeing the world as fresh and strange lies hidden in every human being...We are most of us too busy, too worried, too intent on proving ourselves right, too obsessed with ideas, to stand and stare. We look at a thing and believe we have seen it. And yet what we see is often only what our prejudices tell us to expect to see, or what our past experience tells us should be seen, or what our desires want to see. Very rarely are we able to free our minds of thoughts and emotions and just see for the simple pleasure of seeing. And so long as we fail to do this, so long will the essence of things be hidden from us.”

Bill Brandt, Camera in London, 1948

“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.&rdquo

Antoine de Saint Exupéry

“Refrain until you can respond instead of react.”

Ancient Samarai Saying

“Beauty is the ultimate defense against complexity.”

David Gelernter

“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery – celebrate it if you feel like it.”

Jim Jarmusch