Increasingly, I have felt that it was important for me to "get out of the way" when making pictures. This is especially true with portraits. Making pictures, whether still life or portrait, requires a keen ability to listen. This listening begins initially with the practical aspects of the picture. Composition. Lighting. Ect. but, at this point, it is generally hard to miss what is being said. What is needed. However, beneath this level are audible the things that motivate a picture. Here a stricter code of silence is now needed. A more finely attenuated tuner. I think of Van Gogh who, I believe, saw himself as a dissatisfied technocrat and struggling color theorist. And yet, when he painted, the truest motivations of his heart were set a blaze, and his paints flew unconsciously onto the canvas. Hope. Communion. Empathy. Sorrow. Family. Humility. Love. All buried themselves in layers of resplendent color. But where was Vincent in all this? Now, we speak in whispers because our silent motivations are often buried beneath the bravado of life, family and cultural histories, fear or dryness of heart. We let go of our important prepackaged ideas, and make ourselves available in a way formerly prohibited. Perhaps then in the simplicity of this new space we might make something that touches upon the sweetness of being human.