I’d like to talk about my photographic method. Oh, I can feel you turning away from me; that’s perfectly OK. There’s no need for you to read this essay unless you’d like to know why I’m posting all those photos of neon signs to my Instagram feed (@mostlyelectric), or to learn how my shooting style has changed over the years, from half-baked abstraction to something more closely akin to visual storytelling. You probably won’t care about this shit unless you’re Bryan McCormick, and he might only be pretending to.

I’ve been shooting photos as a matter of daily habit since 1999, when digital cameras became cheap enough to own and good enough to shoot print-quality images. Before that, from early 1993 to late 1995, I used a Magnavox video camera, which is why–allowing myself a modest cough here–the upcoming Pj Perez documentary Parkway of Broken Dreams will have so heckin’ much 1990s Las Vegas period footage. But when I watch it, I’ll be struck by the same annoyance I feel when I look at my early photos: Back then, I edited while I shot, cropping out elements that I’d later wish I’d kept in the frame.

Most of the older photos of signs you’ve seen on my Instagram feed these past few weeks—everything shot before 2008, I should think—were the product of pure dumb luck. Back then I didn’t give much thought to the story a photo needed to tell (which is not a requirement for good photography, but the giants who inspired me—your Dorothea Langes, your Garry Winogrands, your Walker Evans-es—were all about it). I deliberately attempted to produce “arty” photos, because in those days (and in these days, as well), I felt tremendously insecure in making art of any kind. I often tried too hard, telegraphed my intent. I didn’t shoot signs with an eye towards capturing their stories, the artistry of their making; instead, I’d shoot portions of the signs, out-of-context details (like the “emo” at the top of this entry), in an attempt to foist my own vision on someone else’s work. That works for the Avalanches and Jerry Misko, but I don’t possess a fraction of their talent for remixing existing works into something new. All the proper photos of signs I’ve posted recently? They were safety shots I took of the signs to remind myself where I’d grabbed all those detail shots, all those little “emos.” They’re the visual equivalent of Post-it notes.

Since I’ve become an editor I’ve learned how to better stay out of somebody’s way. Scott Dickensheets once told me that he once struggled not to “rewrite someone’s work to square with the voice in my head” (apologies, Scott, for slightly rewording YOUR work). I have come to a similar place in my photos of signs; my photos need to reveal the entire story that the sign was designed to telling. (The three stages in the life of a motel sign: “Get off the highway, weary traveler,” then “Welcome, cheating spouses,” and finally “Somebody call an ambulance.”)

I’ve made peace with the fact that I’ll never be more than a merely competent photographer. At my last gallery show (In Third Place, at the late, lamented Emergency Arts) I read aloud from an “artist’s statement.” After I read it, Anthony Bondi said something important to me: “That was better than the photos on the walls.” He meant to commend me on the strength of the written piece—and it is pretty darn good; you can read it here if you like—but he inadvertently clarified my thinking about something that had been rattling around my head for a while: Photography is, and always has been, a subset of my storytelling. It never belonged at the top of my CV. Realizing that will enable me to take even better photos in the future … and relatedly, I find I’m eager to do it again.

Now, about the string of photos of neon signs in my Instagram feed. P Moss once told me that he sometimes thinks in neon signs (well, one sign, which someone actually made for him, albeit with chaser bulbs instead of neon: BACON). And this fucking virus and related shutdown has instilled in me an overpowering desire for simplicity, for clarity, which takes the shape of angular, spiky and/or curvy neon messages appearing in my head to speak out my desires, like “EAT,” “HEATED POOL” and “COCKTAILS.”

I read five brutally frank newspapers a day. I listen to demoralizing political and true crime podcasts as a matter of habit. And television has become something that happens to me, not necessarily something that I enjoy. (However, I often return to Community, Letterkenny and especially Ted Lasso for comfort.) My relationship with both words and images has been affected by this long, bleak year. It’s only natural that the part of me that needs to feel healthy is drawn to simplicity—a return to basic human wants and emotions, expressed as voluptuously-curved phrases that glow in the dark.

Google Photos allows me to search 20 years’ worth of images by “neon” and “signs.” (Also “neon signs,” but that returns roughly the same results as just “neon.” Leafing through, I’m struck by how many memories are baked into these photos of neon signs, and not just my own. Thousands, even millions of people have looked up at these signs, stayed in the hotels and motels behind them, had memorable nights in the bars underneath them. If I’m to consider myself a storyteller and appreciator of stories others tell, it’s time I quit trying to edit those signs to look like the one that’s in my head. That’s some basic, dopey emo shit, right there.