Photography

Miksang - The Tibetan term for “good eye.” It is a contemplative approach to photography that has helped me solidify the approaches I developed when shooting in the Arctic and Japan and trying to find something new. 

Pete Turner - One of the masters with a great eye for colour and a portfolio filled with jazz album covers for the 1960s and 1970s.

Michael Kenna - Minimalist black and white images.

ECM Records - A jazz label that I would collect far more obsessively if I were a wealthier man. Apart from the music, they are purveying some of the most inspiring images and visual design out there.

Writers - Fiction

Don Delillo - I’ve read just about everything he has written except for a novel he wrote under a pseudonym about a female NHL goalie.  (I simply can’t find it.)

Haruki Murakami - Japanese writer who all the ex-pats had to read when I was there.  A runner too and each novel features a great music playlist that you might want to put together.

Richard Powers - Just discovered him this year.  Still blown away and eager to read more... and more.

Writers - Non-fiction

Neil Postman - His books Teaching as a Subversive Activity and Teaching as a Conserving Activity profoundly impacted my approach to education.  His entire body of work is a pleasure to read for its insight and tone.

Nicholas Nassim Taleb - Brilliant. Most people out there could not manage to write one book as mind-altering as Black Swan or Antifragility.  Brilliant.

Wabi Sabi

Wabi Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers - The English language point of reference for any discussion of this Japanese aesthetic.

Heroes

Vaclav Havel

Arthur Ashe

Coincidences?

I am not...

Pat Hanlon, Senior VP Communications, New York Giants.  On many a Sunday and Monday during the NFL season I get abusive tweets from Eagles, Cowboys and (ahem) Washington fans who want to rub a Giants’ loss in his face or decry a game-deciding blunder by a ref.

Patrick Hanlon, Blogger for Forbes Magazine, a very interesting blog and every once in a while I wonder if guys with my name are supposed to be communicators and thinkers.

No Coincidence

My Dad. Gave me the name, the genes, and sense of old school responsibility.  A luthier and a much better writer than he’d give himself credit to be, he’s also given me a hand made acoustic guitar which I have scratched, nicked and banged on lovingly, though incapably, since 2006.