The Lightkeepers

Perhaps there were only two kinds of people in the world — the takers and the watchers — the plunderers and the protectors — the eggers and the lightkeepers

Trauma and pain are the foundations of art.

The camera is a potent thing, slicing an image away from the landscape and pinning it to a sheet of film.

This is how we know we’re alive, I guess: we continue to feel pain.

To remember is to rewrite. To photograph is to replace.

Photographs speed this undoing. My work is the enemy of memory. People often imagine that taking pictures will help them recall exactly what happened. In fact, the opposite is true. I have learned to leave my camera in the drawer at important events, since snapshots have a way of superseding my recollections. I can either have the impression in my brain or the image in my hand — not both.

It isn’t over until I have recorded it on the page. For you

This configuration of coloring was common in the aquatic world, where light was everything. Seen from above, the fish hoped to blend into the rocky bottom. Seen from beneath, they wanted to be mistaken for the sky.