Watching and Waiting

Every year is always busy. It may be traveling for a photographic project, preparing for exhibitions, working on a book, or as in this past year building a new house and studio. Sometimes it is just the routine and pressures of ordinary life that keep me busier than I would like. Days go by where I think I didn't do anything creative. But the one thing I can do even when I am too busy or uninspired to make photographs is to just keep my eyes open to the world around me. If I pay attention, eventually I "see" something. It may not mean anything to others but it has meaning to me.

Americans have the expression "keep on trucking" meaning to continue going down the road. A pinhole friend who is fighting cancer perseveres with the thought "keep on pinholing". My hope is that I no matter what, I "keep on looking". On a stroll through glittering Ginza or weather beaten old Tokyo ("shita machi"), in the countryside or wherever I happen to be, I watch and wait for a photographic moment.

Edward Levinson (2004)