I personally found Dan Leers's lecture very inspiring and helpful. As an art history major, I have found myself constantly questioning wat I would do with my degree, if I would go to grad school, where I would go to grad school, and so on. I had lunch with Dan and attended his lecture and learned quite a bit that I would not have otherwise known. It was surprising to me that he took almost 4 years off between graduating from Lawrence before deciding to attend Columbia University for his masters in curatorial studies. I was under the impression that most students went more or less straight to graduate school from undergraduate. After talking to Dan, he said that taking time off to discover his passion was one of the most important steps he took in his career path. Now Dan is working at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and recently curated a collection of photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson, who we read about in class. Cartier-Bresson's main focus was the "decisive moment" in photography, which was the new spontaneity in photography facilitated by hand-held cameras. I found the obvious patience and calculation Dan put into his life to be a nice contrast to the impulsive nature of Cartier-Bresson, whom he studied so closely.
There is a meandering to both men and their paths. In high school and his early days at LU, Dan had interest in photojournalism and traveling to take pictures.
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