If you’re heading to Miami for Art Basel, head over to The Betsy Hotel (1440 Ocean Drive Miami Beach, FL 33139-4186) to see my art piece, “Poppin’ Bottles,” that was commissioned by Ruinart Champagne. Nine other artists from around the country will be showcased including: Melissa Ayr – Texas, Elijah Blue – California, Isaac Fortoul – New York, Pascal Pierme – New Mexico, Johnny Robles – Florida, Dane Storrusten – Washington, Carrie Sunday – New York, Kiki Valdes – Florida, Trish Williams – Illinois.

Definitely let me know if you’ll be in the area.

Several weeks ago I had the opportunity to listen to Paul Haggis speak to a small crowd at the Soho House. While his talk focused on writing screen plays – he wrote Crash and Million Dollar Baby among others – I found that many of his ideas could be applied to photography and documentary films. Here are a couple key ideas I learned and how I’ve been applying to my recent photo shoots:

1. “Everything should be latent with emotion.” I’ve found that taking even more time to listen to my subjects has helped me push them to reach for deeper emotions as we are photographing. This ties in with another statement Paul made, “One often falls in love when they are seen for who they are.” Listening and paying attention visually are key.

2. “It helps to explore things that make you uncomfortable about yourself.” This seems counter-intuitive to creating lifestyle images but working from an idea that situations are less than perfect has forced me to push my idea of what a photo should look like or how a moment is supposed to feel. What if how I envisioned a moment doesn’t work out? How would that make me feel and what would the interactions of that moment look like? What happens when I try to control a situation because of my own fears? How can I translate and share those feelings with my subjects and the viewers. To quote Paul once more, “Starting with something that pisses you off always helps.”