At some point it will also occur to you that most of the empty canvases you will find are composed of lines, textures, and color(s), often combined to create what are called predictable patterns. Sometimes these patterns make truly compelling imagery completely on their own. In fact, these background patterns, such as the strawberries shown here, are sought out and used a great deal by magazine art directors and graphic designers. I remember with great fondness a phone call I received years ago from a stock agency in New York. The agency’s executives had seen some of my work and called to tell me that if I were to go out and shoot more compositions of patterns similar to what I had been doing, I would make lots of money. Over the next eighteen months, I must have shot more than two thousand patterns—and what an education that proved to be. Not only did I meet great people along the way, but I became even more aware of how most of us prefer to live in an orderly, predictable, patterned manner.

Nikon D300S with Nikkor 24–85mm lens, f/11 for 1/250 sec., ISO 200