This post is by my new assistant Mr. Sam Major. He’s going to be helping me here at JusPhoPhun, getting my stuff together and streamlining things so you can see more of what I do and how I do it.

Hi everybody. Sam, I am.

I do not know the number of photos I have cropped, stretched, lightened, darkened, sharpened, softened, or otherwise manipulated for the sole purpose of including it in an advertisement. Due to my background of using images as a relatively small part of a larger work — such as an ad — I have a tendency to approach images wondering what I can do to them, how I can change them, or what I can make you think you see. Knowing this, my favorite gatherings of pixels tend to be those that need no alterations — that are better off remaining untouched, unadulterated by the human hand — in order to serve the human eye most effectively, and in essence capture one’s imagination and perhaps inspire awe.

So, I picked this picture that I took on a beach in Galveston last year with my iPhone. It’s not the most spectacular photo ever, but there is not really anything I would want to do with it. It passes the test — the test being when I edit the photo, whether there is anything I would want to actually change. I think you can change an image all you want using hardware and software, but if you don’t get the image when it first happens, there is no recreating it — that moment is gone forever — unless you capture it.