"How many photos do you think you've taken?" I asked.
"Hundreds of thousands," he said. "Maybe more."
"And how many have you shown anyone?"
He smiled. "Almost none."
The philosophy
David has been a photographer for twenty years. He shoots every day — street photography, landscapes, portraits of strangers who catch his eye. His hard drives contain what must be one of the most comprehensive visual diaries of London in existence.
And he's never posted a single image online. Never had an exhibition. Never even printed most of them.
"The moment you start thinking about an audience, you start making different decisions. I don't want to make different decisions. I want to make honest ones."
What I learned
David taught me something I've been thinking about ever since: the most important creative work might be the work nobody ever sees. Not because it's not good enough — but because it was never made to be good enough for anyone else.
It was made to be true.
