What Makes Me Stop?

After nearly three years away from recording The Morning Photowalk, I grabbed a camera, clipped on a microphone, and went for a walk through my hometown of Manteno, Illinois.

I didn't have a topic planned. I just wanted to photograph whatever caught my attention and talk about photography along the way.

What emerged was a conversation about noticing.

Why do we stop for one thing and walk past another? Why can an ordinary street, an old building, a discarded drink, or a particular patch of morning light suddenly feel worth photographing?

Along the way, I found myself thinking about photographs of my son, places that have changed, the photographs we don't understand until years later, and why the camera itself matters far less to me today than it once did.

Sometimes a photograph doesn't need to be important when we make it. Maybe its meaning comes later.

Maybe our job is simply to notice — and document some things while we're here.