Impulse

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“Stare, pry, lis­ten, eaves­drop. Die know­ing some­thing. You are not here long.” — Walker Evans

I dis­cov­ered this quote last night while perus­ing fel­low Group f/5.6 pho­tog­ra­pher Wade Heninger’s web site. I laughed. It’s a good quote, but Walker Evans was a pho­to­jour­nal­ist (or maybe it’d be bet­ter to call him a doc­u­men­tar­ian). Any good pho­to­jour­nal­ist needs to live by this credo.
Then, while slog­ging away in pho­to­shop, I came across a story of pry­ing on This American Life. It’s about some boys who find a creepy old house that they decide to explore it. The mys­ter­ies they find intrigue one of them well into adult­hood and cul­mi­nates in help­ing some­one find her long lost roots. It’s an amaz­ing story, well told. You must lis­ten to it.
Thinking of that story, I real­ized the truth in Evan’s quote. It reminded me of my recent trip up the west coast, return­ing from the hol­i­days. If I hadn’t dug in a lit­tle and talked with folks, I would have missed out on many fun expe­ri­ences: a fas­ci­nat­ing, hour long dis­cus­sion of abstract art with Patrice at the Weinstein Gallery in SF; talk­ing with an older gen­tle­man about Tucker cars at the Niebaum-Coppola win­ery (where they have a real Tucker!); com­par­ing Seattle to Los Angeles at the Domaine Alfred win­ery; and hang­ing out with the cura­tor of a fire depart­ment museum in Napa. These are some of the times I enjoyed the most about the trip.
So, once again, it comes down to the fact that you really have to engage with the world to live life to it’s fullest.