Laguna Beach 1

"Light, shadow, and texture create the essence of photography. Good photography is not based on fast lenses and film. It’s the ability to capture a moment in time, to capture the spirit of someone or something and find meaning in a reality that lives just below the surface. In the beginning of my career, I focused on pictorial journalism. The pictures I made were taken for magazine pages and were pictures that told a story. But print journalism has changed and the era of in-depth picture stories is over.

Now the camera has become a personal journal, a place to store thoughts and feelings, a private place. As an artist, rather than a journalist, I strive to create an image that can have many messages, one in which two viewers will come away with their own impressions and interpretations." -- John Shearer