Photography is, at its core, an act steeped in experience.

Every compelling image relies not merely on technical skill, but on a distinct attitude for encountering the world.

For years, I've wrestled with understanding my own relationship to this craft—why certain fleeting moments demand documentation while others don’t. What elevates an ordinary scene to something worth capturing? What transforms casual looking into genuine seeing?

After much reflection, I've come to recognize that my photographic practice rests on a foundation simpler than I once imagined. While I'm still growing and learning, I've developed a framework that has brought clarity to my work—one that places the emphasis not on equipment or technique, but on how I engage with the world around me.

Maybe this can be useful for you, too.

On Living

There is no act more critical to photographing than living intentionally.

Living goes beyond routine existence. It's not just waking, working, eating, and sleeping. True living means engaging with the world with curiosity and presence.

This requires openness to opportunity and a willingness to step away from routine. It might mean pausing to notice how morning light transforms your kitchen table, observing the way rain alters a city's character, or simply choosing an unfamiliar path home—all acts of making yourself available to the unexpected.

Some find purpose in constant movement, exploring new places and experiences. Others discover it in stillness, in domestic moments. Some thrive in crowds, others in solitude. What matters isn't the shape your life takes, but that you move through the world with awareness and intentionality.

On Developing Sight

Before you can photograph, you must learn to truly see.

Seeing is more than just looking—it's being receptive to the world's nuances. It emerges naturally from living deeply, creating a virtuous cycle: the more fully we live, the more clearly we see; the more we see, the more richly we experience life.

This requires being undistracted. Our world offers endless diversions that pull us away from the present moment. To truly see, we must remove these barriers to attention.

Practice seeing not just to take better photos, but because observation itself enriches your life. Each moment of genuine attention deepens your connection to the world, whether or not you ever press the shutter.

Once you have learned to see, then you can start to photograph.

On Photographing

Once you've learned to live with intention and see with clarity, photography follows naturally.

Anyone can point a camera at something. But creating meaningful photographs means using your camera to record time as a natural extension of living and seeing.

Photography, at its best, is an intuitive response—an almost involuntary reaction to something that catches your attention. A person bracing against wind. Light in an upstairs window. A stranger turning at just the right moment. An abandoned car catching the day's last light.

The photographer's task is to remain open to these moments and respond without hesitation. The meaning might not be immediately obvious, even to you, but will reveal itself later.

In this way, photography exists at the intersection of sight and intuition. You might encounter the most ordinary scene and feel, without knowing why, the immediate need to photograph. This wordless recognition of significance is what transforms picture-taking into photography. Your eye catches something—perhaps a particular quality of light, a geometric alignment, a fleeting expression—and before you can articulate why it matters, your finger is already pressing the shutter.

This is photography as physical response rather than intellectual exercise. The best photographs often come not from careful planning but from this state of receptive awareness, where the boundary between photographer and world grows thin. You become less an observer and more a participant in the visual conversation happening around you. The camera becomes not just a tool but an extension of your perception, capturing moments of recognition that might be too subtle or too quick for words.

On the Practice of Photography

The process is simple, though not always easy: Live with intention. Learn to truly see. Then, photograph.

You won't find any technical shortcuts here. I don’t have any magic rules about composition or exposure. What I'm suggesting runs deeper than that. Great photography doesn't start when you pick up your camera—it starts with how you choose to be in the world. It's about walking through life with your senses wide open, paying attention to what others might miss, and staying receptive to the quiet moments that deserve to be seen.

Thank you for your support, comments, and kind words week after week. If you enjoy what you read, consider sharing this newsletter with a friend who would enjoy it, too.

Share

If these essays and photos connect with you, I'd be grateful for your support. For less than $5 a month—think of it as a digital tip jar—you can help me continue creating and sharing meaningful work. Every contribution, no matter the size, makes a real difference.

The intro music is "Mana Two - Part 1" by Kevin MacLeod
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

And as always, you can join me elsewhere on the web:

michaelwriston.com / Flickr / Glass / Bluesky