Issue 47
Consolidating
One or Two Quotes
I
“Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading — that is a good life.”
— Annie Dillard
II
“Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.”
— Elmore Leonard
Ideas for the Creative Mind
I have been absent from this platform since Issue 46 at the end of May, engaged in creating images and essays rooted in environmental and human narratives, and in building the scaffolding needed to support the work.
It’s too soon to share much of my current creative output. But I can take the opportunity to reintroduce myself and talk about the scaffolding I have been putting in place.
I
I am a documentary photographer and essayist whose work explores the quiet relationships between people, place and the natural world.
What began in Asia as a curiosity-driven pursuit has gradually evolved into a practice shaped by patience, observation and interpretation.
From Iceland’s storms to the weathered grandeur of Angkor Wat, my work reflects a belief that subtlety and humility often reveal more than spectacle. Black Cotton, a project created in Africa’s wilderness, remains a touchstone in my practice. My current projects, Margins of Safety and Signal & Bond, continue this inquiry, examining how people, animals and landscapes respond to uncertainty and change.
II
My decision to focus on environmental and human narratives required me to consolidate my media footprint, to showcase the work in a way that serves the message. This meant cleaning house: deleting the accounts that did not fit and repurposing those that did.
Both my Instagram (@STUDIOduPreez) and Bluesky (@studiodupreez.com) accounts now more closely represent the work of the past year.
Changing these accounts meant writing, editing and rewriting more than sixty vignettes to accompany a tight edit of my image archive. Each essay would carry no more than fifteen images, nine being better, alongside excerpts of my writing.
III
To accommodate the text-centric focus of Substack and LinkedIn, both excellent marketplaces for editorial work, I created six catalogues based on my archive of images and essays.
I borrowed this idea from fashion photographers, who habitually share tear sheets of their published work.
For editorial commissions, licensing and print enquiries, please get in touch: info@johandupreez.com · studiodupreez.com
To me, a life spent writing and creating art is a good life. But in order for that work to be visible, I had to discipline the artist within so that my business brain could get on with the mundane side of the job.