đž Let's talk expectations...
what if you had none?
Iâve been thinking a lot about expectations and how easily they trap us in unproductive ways of thinking.
You know how it goes: you start a project and almost immediately begin projecting how much money it could make. Or you begin personal work and find yourself wondering how it might be sold, who might see it, or what it could lead to. Will it raise your profile, change your life, or even just mean something later on?
As soon as my thinking devolves to this, the creativity, passion, and drive usually vanish, and the project is already dead.
Lately, Iâve been challenging myself to do things purely for pleasure or purpose, without letting my mind jump to what could be down the line. A few examples are tending my raised garden beds (which have cost hundreds of dollars and yielded approx. five small cucumbers, four jalapenos, and three cherry tomatoes), or photographing nature, and then painting from the photos in bed before I go to sleep. I would be genuinely shocked if anything âworthwhileâ ever comes from these small pleasures. And yet, who knows? Something might materialize five years from now, from watercolors or gardening. Something I couldnât possibly imagine today.
âWhether you succeed or not is irrelevant; there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing--and keeping the unknown always beyond you.ââGeorgia OâKeefe
All of this brings me to âFlorida Boysâ, a photo series by photographer Josh Aronson (who is also behind Photo Book Speed Dating, which we wrote about here). âFlorida Boysâ is a love letter to Florida, my home state, and where Aaronson moved to as a child. For the project, he embarked on a coming- of-age road trip through the state with friends and strangers he found âthrough Instagram, scrolling through friends of friendsâ tagged posts, searching for people who also felt connected to Floridaâs strange DNAâ.
The photographs are compelling on their own (reminiscent of Justine Kurlandâs Girl Pictures), but what really struck me about this project is that he shot the work and then waited three years to develop the film. Thatâs a lot of patience and trust in timing for a project that took him five years to make.
However, it seems this process paid off, as the project has been exhibited and written about (in 30+ publications). Apparently, we are a little late to the party, but below is a short excerpt from my interview with Aronson. You can read it in its entirety here.
In your excellent article for Vogue, you wrote: âMaking photographs is, for me, a way to reclaim a sense of belonging. Photography allows me to imagine belonging somewhere and to make that fantasy a bit more real through the act of visualizing it.â Can you expand on this?
âI was born in Canada but raised in Florida. Itâs home, but my family has no roots here, so Iâve always felt like an insider-outsider. Photography lets me belong to a place Iâve been told I donât.
âGrowing up, I never saw myself in the images of Americana or coming-of-age stories I encountered. Through photography, Iâve been able to expand that language. To place myself and people like me inside it. I cast young men as surrogates for myself and bring them into rural and natural locations around the state. Many are first-generation Americans or children of immigrants who, like me, never had those quintessential outdoorsy coming-of-age experiences. Together, we make-believe. We play pretend as young men on the fringe, at ease in nature and in harmony with one another. In the act of pretending, we actually start to feel that sense of belonging. Fake it âtil you make it.â
You didnât develop the film for three years after you shot this work. This seems almost fitting with the subject matter, but itâs obviously not the norm. Why did you wait so long?
âI think of my practice as having two distinct modes: the maker and the editor. I donât like to mix them. While Iâm in the makerâs mode, I donât want to analyze or judge what Iâve made. By keeping the film undeveloped, I could stay curious. Stay hungry to keep staging images. It helped me sustain the project for five years without overthinking it. When I finally developed the film, it felt like rediscovering a diary Iâd forgotten I was writing.â
What did you think when you developed the film?
âHonestly⊠thank God my camera still worked. But really, it was relief and recognition. The pictures felt like proof that what I imagined had actually happened.â
Photographers, if youâre looking for a portfolio review or thoughtful feedback on a project in development (or still incubating), Iâm offering Feature Shoot Premium newsletter subscribers (yearly) a complimentary 30-minute conversation with me, Alison Zavos, Founder of Feature Shoot.
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Love how waiting 3 years to develop the film completely reframes the maker/editor distinction. Aronson takes it further by actually preventing himself from even seeing the work untill years later. I've experimented with shooting projects and deliberately not reviewing until weeks pass, and the psycological shift is real. The parallel to O'Keefe's quote about making the unknown known is perfect cause both are about protecting creative process from premature judgement. This might be the most practical anti-perfectionism advice I've seen in photography.
Keeping my expectations as low as possible makes shooting so much more fun. That said, Florida Boys is one of my favorite projects of 2025.