Here’s key to a secret, one tightly held: More often than not I make photographs for a specific audience.

This has myriad manifests. It may be something as simple as photographing a friend’s favorite locomotive, or capturing a location once shared by a fellow photographer.

However, often it goes deeper. I’ll aim to capture a scene by working with light, shapes and subject in a way that I hope will appeal to a friend.

Sometimes, I’ll simply forward these photos directly to the person in question. To my father, I’ll send photos from my travels in Europe, to my mother, I’ll email photos of my friends and acquaintances.

I might forward an image to an editor that I made to pique their interest.

If I score something really unusual, I might goad a fellow photographer hoping to push them into exposing a similar or better photograph.

Yet, often my very best photographs are those that I make to fulfill a personal ideal.

What?

Ok, my most successful images are those I made to please me.

One last secret. I rarely publish these.

Why?

Because I don’t need to.

Tracking the Light Posts Daily.