More Than a Rock, 2nd Edition

25Perfectly Dead Things

Perhaps you will say: But wait, how about design and composition, or, in painter’s lingo, organization and significant form? My answer is that these are words which, when they become formulated, signify, as a rule, perfectly dead things. [. . .] Composition, design, etc., cannot be fixed by rules, they are not in themselves a static prescription by which you can make a photograph or anything that has meaning. They signify merely the way of synthesis and simplification which creative individuals have found for themselves.

—Paul Strand

The first time I was invited to speak at a photography conference, I sat in the audience and watched other presenters deliver their talks, waiting for my turn to go on stage. A then-prominent ...