Becoming Useless

And why that's important.

There’s nothing to see here. Kenneth Jarecke/Contact Press Images

Looking for success? After trying everything else, you may want to consider becoming useless.

We’ve been seeing a lot of pictures of people holding signs lately. Which can only mean we’re going to see more pictures of people holding signs. As photographers, we are conditioned to respond to the marketplace, and today the marketplace of visual ideas is housed on Instagram. Pictures of signs are odd, not because we don’t agree with the words on the signs, but because we already have several places for words, one of which is the caption that goes directly under our pictures.

Pictures and words are two different things. They have different jobs. Pictures show, while words tell.