When I was a much younger photographer I would head out, camera in hand, in search of images. I would have an idea of what types of images I wanted to capture and make, and so the world for me became constricted to that idea and everything else disappeared. Many times I would come back with a few images but many, many more times I would come back frustrated with no images that I liked or found successful.

I worked this way for many years and then at one point, I forget when, but quite a few years back, I was listening to an interview with Ralph Gibson. At one point he was talking about meeting Helen Levitt, the famed mid to early 20th century street photographer. Ralph was showing Helen his photographs and after flipping through his work for a while she paused and to Ralph she observes; “You need a destination.” “What? replies Ralph.

“You need a destination. You don’t just go out in search of images. You need to set a destination, a place you need to get to or an errand you need to run. The images will come while you travel to your destination”

It’s seems to be a variation on the old saying about the important part of a journey is not the destination but the getting to the destination. After hearing this I started taking it to heart. I no longer go out specifically to photograph but rather I’ll have a destination or errand I will run (getting lunch, going to the bookstore, going to an art gallery, and so on) but always with camera in hand.

A great example of this is the image above from my series “Another City.” In association with AIPAD this past week, PACE gallery hosted a talk with Emmet Gowin which I was thrilled to attend. He is an excellent teacher, speaker as well as a deeply religious person. From there I was planning on attending AIPAD at the Armory on Park Avenue. This was basically in the other side of Manhattan and since it was a nice day I decided to walk. Seeing that I had some time to kill, I didn’t quite make a beeline for The Armory but decided to meander a bit and went on the highline heading downtown. I figured I would jump off at 14th Street and walk over to the Eastside and catch the #6 train to 68th St. (Hunter College). While walking the highline I come across this scene of this blooming tree in front of a sleek, black new apartment building. The blue of the windows caught my eye. I experimented a bit trying to catch both the pink of the tree and the blue of the window. But I thought the above composition was the best.

Usually during my lunch hour I will have an errand to run and I always carry a camera. You never know what you’ll see.