Top Five: 25 Lessons I Have Learned

I just ran across this book, 25 Lessons I Have Learned (about photography), by the NY photographer Lorenzo. Great for photographers, but the lessons apply equally well to life in general. After you've looked at the first five here (all of them in his own words), go to Lorenzo's web site to read them all. He's done a good job of briefly stating each lesson and offering a photograph that illustrates the lesson. From there, you could read the book...

5 Just do it.

Do not hesitate, do not procrastinate, the time is now.

For it is easiest not to try, to allow all the wonderful moments that distinguish one's own life to go by, if only because—we let them.

4. Take the long way home.

See the world with a child’s eyes. To do so, you must let go of all the things you must do, and simply explore without an agenda, without a watch, without a care to divert you away from appreciating all the glorious details of the environment that glimmers around you.

3. Use your imagination.

Perhaps the greatest lesson my father ever impressed upon me was “Use Your Imagination.” He had those very same words posted in his factory for thirty years, and it was the first thing that his employees saw every morning when they sauntered in each morning.

Thus, that is why I believe that whether you’re making furniture or taking pictures, using your imagination is critical to success, crucial to making the most of what you’ve already got, and key to making what is good into something great.

2. Everywhere you go...that camera needs to be there with you.

Andy Warhol said it first, and I’m saying it again—carry Her with you everywhere you go, for you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

I know this to be all too true, because there have been far too many great shots that I’ve missed simply because I decided to “leave it behind.” Most of the time it was an excuse to concentrate on other menial things. But then, regrettably, I find myself lamenting those sweet opportunities missed, because I was truly amiss with the decision to “let it rest.”

1. Everything is beautiful.

My first love, writing, was the first to teach me this critical lesson—everything is beautiful. Photography wholly reinforces this truism.

Everything is beautiful, you just have to see it from a different point of view sometimes, in order to appreciate its true aesthetic worth.