Editing less
One slider, one preset, one rule: stop when it still looks like the day.
I did not set out to take good photographs. I set out to look, and the phone happened to be in my pocket.
The first rule is boring: take the frame, then take a second one a step to the left. Most of the keepers are the second one.
Pay attention, then count.
What I would tell my past self
What survives a year of deleting is rarely the dramatic frame. It is a wire, a doorway, a person looking somewhere else.
Light does most of the work. I only decide when to stand there.
Related notes: What 10,000 phone photos taught me.
Links to
Linked from
Photos · 2026-10-02
What 10,000 phone photos taught me
Constraints are a feature. Ten thousand frames later, what I keep, what I delete, and why the worst camera is the one I stopped using.
Essays · 2026-03-02
Notice things, measure them
The thread that runs through all of it: pay attention, then count.
Photos · 2025-11-14
Grain is a feeling
Noise as texture: when to keep it and when to let it go.