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Guy Tal

Professional photographic artist, author and speaker working primarily in the Western US.

guytal.com

Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours. - ~Hermann Hesse

I began using the internet in the early 1990s before it became available as a public service. I was studying and teaching at a university in Israel at the time and had the good fortune to work with the systems administrators at the university’s computer center. Little did I know how this experience would change my life and how consequential it would become to my career in (of all things) photography. Rather than pursue my original plan for a career in the academy, I instead began working in technology, which ultimately brought me to the US, where, partly thanks to my interest in photography, I fell in love with the place that is now my home. Both my love of photography and my career in technology paralleled the advent and growth of the internet. For a while, I earned income in both technology and photography, but as my corporate career wore me down, photography always offered me refuge and inspiration, and I finally decided to make it my primary occupation. Recounting this history to a photographer friend, he asked how I felt the internet has affected photography during this period, which prompted this train of thought.

Scientists and engineers sometimes use the term “signal-to-noise ratio” to describe the proportion of desirable information to unwanted distractions and interferences.