051425 - Savannah, Georgia
“Put that camera down, you bitch,” someone yelled out of a car as it drove by with the door wide open.
I had a little time in Savannah yesterday to walk around and take some photos. I tend to wander through the rougher areas — not just in Savannah, but in any city I visit. I’m drawn to the spots most people avoid. Not the tourist zones, but the alleys, the quiet, broken-down neighborhoods where the grit is.
I’ve photographed Savannah a lot over the past few years, so it’s getting harder to find places I haven’t already been. But every now and then, I’ll stumble on a back street or alley I’ve never seen before, and in it, something I’m almost certain no one else has photographed.
There’s something about walking aimlessly with a camera that I find incredibly fulfilling. Honestly, if I could do just that for the rest of my life — wander around and photograph things that most people overlook — I’d be content.
There’s a quote I heard recently - can’t remember who said it — but it stuck with me. It was something like: “It’s better to be aimless than to be rigid with a plan.” Because when you’re too locked into a goal, you might miss the opportunities that pop up along the way. You need to stay flexible, fluid—open to what the world hands you.
That’s how I feel about photography. I’ll walk for hours—sometimes five to ten miles — just to see what shows up. It becomes a game. A game between me, the camera, the street, and whatever decides to show up that day.
Usually, it takes a few warm-up shots to get into it — just pictures of objects, whatever catches my eye. But once I find a rhythm, it’s like the world starts to reveal itself. The good stuff comes out of hiding.
That’s what real photography is to me. [Not staging scenes or setting up portraits—that’s more like illustration, as Garry Winogrand would say.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP6lP3UaP24&t=893s) What I care about is life. Life unfolding right in front of you. Life happening.
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