Somewhere in my philosophic evolution in Ann Arbor, back then, I realized that the faculty was full of it. A philosopher is a revolutionary, period, not a babbler. His/her mission is to change the status quo. Life is dynamic change and can't be converted to a reductionist thesis about meaning. That is interpretation, subjective and static. Ideas versus images, which to prefer! So I asked myself. Our realities are our projections, even the scientific ones. So after years of study, I took off to Europe to dump the academic garbage and purge my intellect. It took a few years!!

The difference between expounding an idea using words and seeing an image (photograph) is tremendous. You need premises and arguments to support an idea, and your chances of persuasion are often negligible. Options and risks are always haunting factors in any decision to act. You may believe in something but never act on that belief. And that did not fare well with me. A philosopher is a man of action, and not just of words.

In pursuit of images I realized that photography serves the purpose of me communicating with the world. Seeing an image is instantaneous, iconic if universal, and touches on the most fundamental aspect of life, the human condition. In other words, what is Beautific. For without ?beauty? no civilization can extol its own grandeur or accomplishments, for also without beauty, that exhilarating feeling in the heart, there is little justification for life, its ambitions, and conclusion. And I mean Beauty in the broadest sense to encompass all aspects of life, The beauty that inspires, heals, reconciles, attracts, enhances and delivers us from the absurdities of an existential whirlpool of conflicting emotions and reasoning. As Nietzche entoned, beauty is its own justification.

So I embraced photography and kept philosophy as its soul mate to support my vision of what I see and how it can be appreciated within a two-dimensional world of reference. A photograph with word captions is redundant. Words are intrusive. Either you comprehend instantly what you see or the photographer failed to communicate. All news photos are manipulative, coercive, and a form of marketing.

My mission is to portray, capture, the all-too-human and the sublime, and it is my responsibility to inspire and enhance positive responses and not to degrade or abuse what is intrinsically our human condition. Granted, photography like painting, performs and functions also as a historical record of our follies and foibles and frailties as humans.
And that aspect of it, granted, is a matter of fact without any need to dispute.

But let me add a few things. First, photography is not a point-and-shoot affair. It takes mastery of technique and serious personal maturity, to become a great communicator. Second, being cute and hip and marketable is not my idea of an exceptional person. And third and last for now, there is magic in the obvious and a great photographer lets you see it when you look.