Picture, World.

An Introduction

Eclipse on my front porch, 2024. 6”x9” work print. Remember some weeks ago when so many turned their eyes skyward?

Hi all,

It’s Peter Hoffman - welcome to my new outlet Picture, World.

Some of you are here from my previous outlet that was called Seeing Is Affection. For various reasons, I decided to drop that site and that name. I’ve got somewhat mixed feelings moving to Substack, but after spending a little too much time researching the various options instead of making the work I care about, I landed here.

In the recently concluded 2023/2024 academic year I was a Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow at the University of Michigan. This afforded me some much needed time and space to gather my thoughts about the part of my life that has to do with photography, writing, and really what I would call my creative practice - for the true lack of a better term. I’ve had to think seriously about how to maintain my practice while I live a very different life than when I started.

I spent the year thinking a lot about what constitutes effective communication about environmental issues and talking to people who could help me understand that better. I read novels, poetry and theory. Can you guess what felt more powerful?

I didn’t look at much photography.

When I did creative work, I focused on short photo essays about local landscapes, but I also became interested in writing about photography as used by the media and practiced by other artists. Since I’ve been involved with photography more or less since I was 16 and working in the industry in some way since I was 18 (a touch more than half a lifetime ago!) I’ve formed a few thoughts on the medium and related matters. So, in addition to sharing my photography, these observations are going to be my guides.

Another big reason for this shift in practice is that since 2020 I’ve spent a lot of time caring for my fantastic 3 year old son. He’s had some significant health issues, mostly last winter. If having a child alone isn’t enough to shake up how I practiced, the health issues he’s had really did the trick. He’s recovered well and has a good outlook, but it shook me up in a way that is permanent, in many ways for the better, I hope. Trying to be a good husband, and caring for him are still bigger parts of my life than my professional work, but gratefully life has since become a little bit more balanced lately. And writing, it turns out, is slightly (only slightly!) more compatible with the life of a parent than being a photographer who needs to be in the field.

I also like to work slowly with my photography. It’s not a pace that fits well with media or social media. Years of work can pop up online, even when published by a great partner, and feel like they’re gone in an instant. This is not the arena that is at the top of consideration. So, while I am working on years long photography projects that I hope to turn into books, I can talk about other things here (or sometimes share some process.)

With this context, if I had to break it down, I would say I intend for Picture, World to be a site of essays both of and about photography.

If none of this seems all that clear at the moment, hopefully it will start to be soon enough. 

As I begin, there is no planned regular schedule for publishing. I will try to see what works for the sorts of things that I’ve been writing, and the pace that my life is going outside of my practice - which is a little bit unpredictable. I hope you’ll stick around as I’m excited to start sharing some work and ideas again.

- Peter