Photographer Maggie Steber on the Most Important Photo She’s Ever Taken

Madje Steber © Maggie Steber

Maggie Steber: I could be clever and say it’s the next one I’m going to take. It’s true some photos mean so much to us and we have affection or regard for them because of the experiences behind them. This can lead to trouble when it comes to selection, because it can be difficult to separate the emotional experience from the photo….while the experience might have been special, the photo might not reflect that to anyone but the photographer. But I digress. One photo taken in Haiti that won a lot of awards changed the course of my career and at the time, was the most important photo I ever shot. But now I would say it would be a photo I took of my mother who suffered from memory loss. In truth, I think this idea of the most important photo changes with time. We can hang the prizewinners on our walls but what we keep inside the chambers of our hearts and intellects is probably something different and in many ways more valuable.