About

Andrew Epstein renewed his passion for photography after a career as a physician, educator, and strategic advisor.  In these professional roles, he learned that it is not what you see that constructs your world and its resulting challenges and possibilities, but how you see.  

“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”
                               — Dorothea Lange

Andy returned to photography because it offered a creative and non-verbal way to achieve the same ends:

“When I photograph, what I’m really doing is seeking answers to things.”
                               — Wynn Bullock

Empathy and compassion are the building blocks of a trusting relationship to be useful to others.  Andy is exploring the question: in what way a can a photograph elicit empathy and compassion and serve as a bridge between people and a catalyst to action?  

“There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment.”
                               — Robert Frank

Photography has added new domains to pursue Andy’s curiosity, from the historic to the technical, the aesthetic to the humanistic.

“The thing that’s important to know is that you never know. You’re always sort of feeling your way.”
                               — Diane Arbus

A good photograph is not about something, it is something.  The thrill after a shoot, whether in the city or the landscape, portraits or interiors, is to discover something new, a reality that exists only in the image itself, often not seen when making the photograph.  A surprise!

“Photography is not about the thing photographed. It is about how that thing looks photographed.”
                                — Garry Winogrand

Stephen Shore perfectly describes his experience in making photographs. 

“I enjoy the camera. Beyond that it is difficult to explain the process of photographing except by analogy: The trout streams where I flyfish are cold and clear and rich in the minerals that promote the growth of stream life. As I wade a stream I think wordlessly of where to cast the fly. Sometimes a difference of inches is the difference between catching a fish and not. When the fly I’ve cast is on the water my attention is riveted to it. I’ve found through experience that whenever—or so it seems—my attention wanders or I look away then surely a fish will rise to the fly and I will be too late setting the hook. I watch the fly calmly and attentively so that when the fish strikes—I strike. Then the line tightens, the playing of the fish begins, and time stands still.”
                                 — Stephen Shore

And Imogen Cunningham captures her thinking after a shoot.

“Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow.”
                                — Imogen Cunningham

Andy divides his time between Boston and Santa Fe.