Henri Cartier-Bresson wrote in 1952 that the natural landscapes featured by Ansel Adams, devoid of any human presence, were not a worthy subject for photography.

This criticism was echoed by urbanites in New York who labelled some of Adams’ work as misanthropic, bleak, cold and so remote it had the potential to provoke terror.

“There is a person in every one of my photographs”, Adams would retort years later, perhaps understanding that city-dwelling critics would never understand his message.…

If the great Stoic philosophers lived long enough to see the invention of the camera, would they have dabbled in photography?

Who knows. Maybe, maybe not. But if they did, how might they have applied Stoic principles to their work?

Before we make any connections between philosophy and photography, let’s begin with a brief overview of Stoicism.

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What is Stoicism?