About a year or two into taking up landscape photography as a hobby, I went with a few friends to hear Cole Thompson, a Colorado-based black and white photographer, speak about his photographs, methods and finding his personal vision. At the time, I found his talk to be interesting and thought-provoking but not terribly relevant to my own photographic path. I was busy pursuing iconic landscapes and chasing dramatic weather so his messages about personal expression didn’t resonate much at the time. 

Years later, now with different goals for my photography, I see significantly more relevance in many of the points from his talk, with his views on what he calls “photographic celibacy” constantly coming to mind. While Cole describes this practice and his reasons in more detail on his website, these few sentences from him sum it up well: