My very best wishes for a happy and wonderful 2013! May you find peace, love, and magic—both in photography, and in life.

I’ve heard the saying that if you want to be a better photographer, place yourself in front of more interesting things. But art comes from within, and photographs are expressions of our artistic selves. So by all means seek the dramatic scene, but also look for the drama within the everyday—the kind of subject that if you don’t learn to look with eyes that see differently you may miss altogether. For example, a pepper from the supermarket, photographed above on a black velvet background.

May your muse take you from the mundane to the magnificent, and back again, and help you to see the drama, power and magic in both.