Subtract

Photography is as sculpture. You take a cluttered scene, like a lump of clay, and you begin peeling away.
Eventually, the form that remains is the sculpture. In painting, the blank canvas is added to until a painting emerges. Addition.
Photography is concerned with subtraction. Seeing only what is necessary for the scene. Discerning what we can whittle down to the essence of the scene. The most powerful photographs are the simple.
It should be the daily study we undertake. To subtract from the scene what we can. The uncluttered landscape. The uncluttered life.
In our culture, it is usually the addition we dwell upon.
Most difficult to live Thoreau's adage,
Life consists in the abundance of things we can afford to leave alone.