Waiter, Paris — The "Easter egg" at the lower edge of the frame: an ashtray, from an era when smoking in Parisian cafés was simply part of the scenery. I shot this years before it became a rarity.
I've bought other photographers' work, hung it on my wall, and months later noticed something in it I'd missed the first fifty times I walked past — a detail in the shadow, a shape at the edge of the frame. I call those easter eggs. I look for the same quality in my own photographs before I ever consider one finished.That's the real test of whether a print is worth it. A lot of art gives you everything at a glance, and that's fine for filling a wall. But a photograph that still has something left to find after months of living with it is a different kind of object. It rewards the kind of looking you can only do slowly, over time, in your own house, in whatever light happens to be hitting it that afternoon.Authorship matters here too. An easter egg only means something if it was put there on purpose — by someone with a consistent way of seeing, not generated to fit the broadest possible market. That's part of why every piece I sell is a limited edition, signed and numbered, with a certificate of authenticity. It's not a formality. It's confirmation that a specific person made a specific number of these, and stands behind each one.The rest is a given at this point: archival paper so the tones don't drift or fade, museum framing so the piece arrives resolved rather than needing to be finished by whoever hangs it. Those are the baseline, not the reason to buy. The reason to actually buy the piece is the same reason I keep photographs on my own walls — there's still something in it I haven't found yet.