What Fifty Years Has Taught Me

Fifty years, three lessons. I am suspicious of anyone who has been at any art for that long and claims to have learned more than three things, and equally suspicious of anyone who claims to have learned fewer.

The first: the light is the subject. The mountain is not the subject. The lake is not the subject. The cottonwoods are not the subject. The light that happens to be falling on the mountain, the lake, and the cottonwoods on a particular afternoon in a particular minute — that is the subject. Everything else is supporting cast.

The second: the patience is the work. Not the gear, not the technique, not the eye for composition. The willingness to wait. The willingness to drive home empty. The willingness to come back. Patience is not a virtue applied to the work; patience is the work, and the rest is decoration.

The third: you are very, very lucky to be doing this at all. The world is staggeringly beautiful, and you are alive in a moment of it, and you have been given a small instrument with which to register your gratitude. Fifty years is not long enough. It will have to be long enough.