The Ones That Stay With Me

We look at the greats—Eggleston, Winogrand, Frank, Arbus—and we see a handful of photographs. Maybe a few dozen that are widely known. The icons. The ones printed in books and museums, studied and praised. But what we don’t see are the hundreds of thousands they made to get there.

Garry Winogrand left behind over 300,000 unedited photographs when he died. 2,500 rolls of undeveloped film. He was a man obsessed with capturing life as it happened—so much so, he couldn’t keep up with himself.

Vivian Maier shot over 150,000 images in complete obscurity. Most were never printed in her lifetime. They lived in boxes, in storage lockers, in silence. It took decades before the world noticed.

Even William Eggleston—so often associated with the effortless poetry of the everyday—shot relentlessly. His archives hold thousands upon thousands of photos that most will never see.

That’s the thing no one tells you when you start: most photos go unseen. Even for the legends.

Photography is a slow burn. A waiting game. A devotion to something that might never speak back.

And I’ll admit it—I’ve spent years chasing after that one perfect image. I’ve deleted more photos than I care to admit in the pursuit of it. I used to believe that every frame needed to be great. That quantity meant I was doing it wrong.

But I don’t believe that anymore.

Now I think it’s okay—necessary, even—for most photos to be quiet. To not hit. To just be part of the process. Because it’s only by making the many that we arrive at the few.

And here’s where it gets a little personal:

I have a small list of photographers I admire deeply. The ones who shaped my eye, my ethos, the way I carry a camera through the world.

But the images I love the most? They’re my own.

Maybe that sounds arrogant. I don’t mean it that way. I know I’m not the best, and I’m fine with that. But my photos—they’re the ones I lived. They’re filled with my moments, my mess, my perspective. They carry the weather of my life. The joy is in knowing I made something, even if it’s imperfect. Especially because it’s imperfect.

It’s not about mastery.

It’s about memory.

Some of my favourite photos wouldn’t matter to anyone else. They’re not technically right. They’re not groundbreaking. But they are mine. And they mean something.

That’s the difference between admiration and love. I admire the greats. But I love my own work.

Because I was there. Because I saw it. Because I chose to press the shutter—and that’s enough.