His recent post, “Wear Good Shoes: Advice to young photographers” is outstanding. And it’s outstanding because Alec collaborated with his colleagues to produce the article and because it’s in a convenient PDF download to print out and keep in your pocket for easy reading during that next story budget meeting.

So, which photographer’s advice plucks your strings? I like Thomas Hoepker’s advice for young photographers the most because I followed — heedless at the time — a similar path. Thinking back, earning a non-photography degree was the best decision I made, not because I think photography schools twist your mind, but because I developed my own sense of style and vision by finding great photographers and great artists to study on my own terms.

Avoid all photo schools and courses. Most will give you lofty ideas and twist your mind in one direction. Find your own way to photography, nobody will ask you later if you have a diploma. Visit as many museums as you possibly can. The images you see (painted, drawn, etched or photographed) will stay with you for the rest of your life. They will help you to discover good pictures in real life. Suppress any silly ambitions of becoming a great artist. Being a good photographer is difficult enough. -Thomas Hoepker

Now, the responses for wearing good shoes can’t be emphasized enough. Every six months I wear out two pairs of shoes — one pair of New Balance tennis shoes and one pair of Doc Martens. My feet hurt and the soles are thin by the time I walk in the shoe store. It tells me I’m working hard. It would be better if I wore them out in three months. That would say I’m working even harder.

Stranded, Photograph copyright Amy Stein

In Davin Risk’s interview, Amy talks about how the project evolved.

The seeds of the project were planted during hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. I was sitting in my living room watching live images of people stuck on their roofs as the water was rising around them. I remember thinking that a lot of these people were living in poverty and had been for generations, but it required them taking to their roof and writing “help” in big bold letters on live television before we paid attention. In those moments I began to examine my own apathy and the broader decline in American civic engagement.
During this same time I was making frequent car trips to Pennsylvania for my Domesticate project. Along the way I would pass cars that had broken down on the side of the road and really pay only minimal attention. After a while I started noticing the people stranded and standing next to the car. I began to slow down and try to see their faces and their expressions. They had that same dazed and shaken expression as the people on their roofs in New Orleans. I immediately wanted to pull over and capture these moments of personal isolation.

Stranded, Photograph copyright Amy Stein

I like this project for the originality and how it seems to communicate the universal feelings of loneliness, disappointment, and fear of being stranded far from home. Those are passive feelings that I think we all harbor when we’re on a long trip. Driving through Kentucky a few weeks ago, a family in a Jeep eagerly passed me on the highway. The driver angrily looked at me for not driving fast enough. A few miles down the road, the same Jeep was parked on the highway with steam billowing from the hood. The look on the driver’s face was fearful and disappointed. That memory relates and connects me with Amy’s project.

Stranded, Photograph copyright Amy Stein

Make sure to read the rest of Making Room’s interview and other projects here. Also, check out Amy’s blog, and her outstanding (and that is an understatement) conceptual essay, Domesticated. Personally, I think Domesticated is one of the strongest conceptual essays out there right now.

Domesticated, photograph copyright Amy Stein.