Work alone if you can…

In my reading about the great American photographer Walker Evans, I stumbled across this quote from Evans in his advice to his photography students at Yale (as cited in Walker Evans at Work):

“Work alone if you can. Girls are particularly distracting, and you want to concentrate; you *have* to. This is not anti-feminism; it is common sense. Companions you may be with, unless perfectly patient and slavish to your genius, are bored stiff with what you’re doing. This will make itself felt and ruin your concentrated, sustained purpose.”

It is so easy to get lost in yourself when shooting images – and the work almost demands it. Evans’ advice rings very true for me!