We must think it ain’t just about shooting, taking or making photos — it is the whole *experience* of making photos.

The word ‘experience’ is also tied to the word ‘empirical‘ (tied to reality, real life). ‘Experience’ comes from the Latin “experior” which means “to test, to try, to attempt, to prove, or to ‘put to the test’). And as you do, you practice and learn and discover a deeper truth about x, y, z.

Empirical

I find the word ’empirical’ so interesting… it comes from the Greek ‘empeiria‘ which pertained initially to medicine:

A doctor didn’t have pre-existing knowledge, but he practiced (trial and error) and figured out how to do surgery via his personal experience in the matter.

A trial, an attempt

To take the notion empirical further — it comes from ‘peira‘ which literally means trial, experiment, attempt.

This means in life with photos, words, thoughts and anything .. it is just a trial, an experiment and an attempt! Even more poetic ‘peira’ comes from *per-, which means “to cross, to pass”. That means through trial and error and actually doing it … you cross a path of non-knowledge (ignorance) towards knowledge (you learn and you know as you do it!)