Love Quote by John Sexton

There is a quiet insistence in Sexton's phrasing: he "still" makes photographs of the natural environment, as if answering an unspoken suspicion that nature photography is a phase you outgrow, or a genre you graduate from once you gain status as an educator. The repetition of "make photographs" also matters. It pushes back against the casual idea of taking pictures, treating the photograph as a crafted object, the product of attention and labor rather than mere access to scenery.

The emotional engine is even more pointed. Sexton frames the work not as aesthetic tourism but as continuity: the natural world was "part of my life before I was involved in photography". That pre-photographic life is doing heavy lifting. It implies a relationship to place that predates the camera's temptations - the urge to chase novelty, to collect vistas, to treat landscape as content. His love isn't triggered by the medium; the medium arrives later as a way to honor something already formative.

Coming from an educator, the line also reads like a subtle lesson about artistic integrity. It suggests that the best work is tethered to lived experience, not assignments, trends, or the market's rotating hungers. Nature here isn't a backdrop for self-expression; it's a long-term companion. Sexton positions the camera as an extension of a prior commitment, which is why the statement feels almost defensive: he's protecting a motive (love, history, belonging) from being mistaken for a style choice.