What Are You Trying to Say?
Every photograph is a decision.
Not simply a decision about aperture or shutter speed, but a decision about meaning. About what matters. About what deserves to be seen.
In a world saturated with images, it is easy to confuse activity with intention. We take photographs because we can. Because the light is interesting. Because something looks dramatic. Because the moment feels urgent.
But none of that answers the deeper question.
What are you trying to say?
I ask this often when teaching photography. Not to unsettle. Not to criticise. But to clarify.
Because when that question is not asked, the image drifts. It may be sharp. It may be technically accomplished. It may even attract attention. But it lacks spine.
Intention gives an image its spine.
Without intention, we photograph surfaces. With intention, we photograph meaning.
This does not require grand themes or political statements. It requires honesty. It requires awareness. It requires the discipline to pause before pressing the shutter and to understand why this moment, this person, this light, matters to you.
Photography is never neutral. What we include is a statement. What we exclude is a statement. Where we stand is a statement.
Even silence is a statement.
When I work on long-form projects, whether documenting a community, exploring memory, or sitting quietly with someone in natural light, I am not searching for spectacle. I am searching for truth. For something that feels real and unforced.
The discipline of attention is not about intensity. It is about care.
Care for the subject. Care for the frame. Care for the meaning carried within the image.
The portrait accompanying this essay is of my father. I photographed him outside the hospital in sunlight, not long before he died.
There was no elaborate set-up. No constructed drama. Just light, presence, and time that felt fragile.
When I look at that photograph, I am reminded that photography is not about performance. It is about a relationship. It is about memory. It is about responsibility.
Every time we raise a camera, we are shaping how something will be remembered.
That is not a small thing.
Before you press the shutter, pause.
Ask yourself the question.
What are you trying to say?
Then mean the answer.
