Essay Archives - Riding the Dragon

A Nude by Any Other Name

The female nude: a genre of photography that is heavily tried and ambiguously true. Women photographers have tried to reclaim authorship of the female experience through their work, but is it possible to be naked without being nude?

The Fall that Follows Creation

Creativity is often so focused on the finished object—the creation—that we fail to attend to what comes afterward. Yet, what comes next is also part of the process: it is how we react to and recover from what we have created.

Virgin Territory: Discovering the Unknown Reveling in the act of discovery at Unseen Amsterdam

Ancient maps marked the accomplishments of discoverers, documenting the world as known thus far, the boundaries of which were marked by monsters: “Here be dragons.” Modes of discovery have changed—we may now brag about being the first to hear of…

The Intensity of Exposure Featuring the photography of Øistein Sæthren Dahle

The thing about being born a human is that none of us get out alive. Some of us spend our whole lives ignoring that fact, taking time like it’s on infinite tap, while others act according to their fear of…

No News Is Good News

“Do you want to go to World Press Photo and feel bad about everything?” This year's World Press Photo exhibit, on display in Amsterdam until July 22, is no exception to the rule that no news is good news.

Brilliant Failures and Second Chances

Failure is one of the top human fears, as explained by Paul Louis Iske at the Lean Startup Summit Europe 2018. Yet, if we can learn to position failure as a learning opportunity, we have a much better chance of creating a "brilliant failure" and to earn second chances.

Making Peace with the Machine

There’s a certain pride that frequently comes with rebelling against the machine. Yet this impulse comes at the cost of a sense of connectedness.

We Are Not Alone.

Every night on Earth, we mortals gaze up into the vast universe of stars and planets, full of humility and awe, and ask, “Are we alone?” The answer is already all around us: no.

Books as Symbols of Awe and Inadequacy

To be in a bookstore, filled with the intellectual and creative pursuits of humans of all occupations, interests, orientations, physical traits and personalities, is to be aware of all the things which we could not possibly learn in a single lifetime.

The Independent’s Dilemma

I work for myself, which means my boss is a real bitch. She makes me work long hours, never likes anything I produce until I’ve revised it a thousand times (and maybe not even then) and, after all that, she’ll hardly ever pay me a compliment or let me relax on vacation. Is this what I signed up for?