Photography
As a writer, I relate to the world through words, stories, and ideas. But writing is also static: It's sitting at a desk typing sentences on a screen.
Photography is embodied, visceral, spontaneous. After a day of staring at a screen, I love how different it feels from writing. I'm huddling in the photo pit, crouching trying to get a better angle, literally running after a movie star calling their name trying to get them to look back. It's physical and chaotic and exhausting. It's like being a sniper, looking through the telephoto lens, waiting and breathing, finger on the shutter ready to fire the instant the celebrity glances your way.
Like writing, photography is all craft and strategy. It's about making decisions. But I feel like I'm using an entirely different part of my brain.
It's also immediate gratification. If I write an article for a magazine, I might get an email from someone weeks later when it's published. More likely I never hear about it. With a photo I can show it to someone and right away they might say, "Oh my god, I love it, you totally captured my personality!"
It's making someone feel seen instantly. That never happens with writing.
I'm a red carpet photographer for Wikipedia and the founding photographer of the WikiPortraits initiative. I've covered the Nobel Prizes in Stockholm and Oslo, Sundance, SXSW, the Toronto International Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, and cultural events in New York, San Francisco, and Toronto.
I'm also a writer, writing professor, and AI educator. I taught storytelling at Yale. My work has appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, Wired, Harvard Business Review, and Psychology Today, where I was a senior editor. Most recently I worked at OpenAI, where I led the writing community.
Photography
Focusing on spontaneous, natural moments that reveal personality