Preparation and research for a magazine assignment is just as important as the actual click click shoot. I’m off to Naples today to begin shooting for the New York Times Magazine. Last night I was testing lighting and posting on Snapchat with my iPhone after an afternoon looking at Italian painters and sculptors at the Galleria Borghese. One of the most “user friendly” art museums I’ve ever visited. Humbling. I’ve been influenced my whole photo life by painters and writers. The writer for this Times piece is novelist Teju Cole @_tejucole who did a reading last night smack in the middle of Foro Romano (Roman ruins). So all in all a day of incredible artistic absorption. So my mental hard drive is full. It’s the way I always like to be before a heart felt shoot. The tech tests are just that. Tech. It’s the mental state of mind that is most important to my work. Take that away and I would have nothing to say. All those I mentor know that visual literacy and authorship is my mantra. Teju and I travel to Naples together and a more symbiotic team I cannot imagine. Track me here to see how it all manifests into my final work. I will be referencing the masters of the late 16th century all the way.