Notes to the actor: Just this. Here. Now.

Just this. Here. Now.

When I work with actors, I often return to this simple mantra: "Just this. Here. Now." It's a reminder that the entirety of our craft exists in the present moment. Not in our hopes for what might come next, not in our worries about how we're being perceived, but in the raw immediacy of now.

When I myself am working on set or on stage, this is a thought - a way of being - I work to remember to return to. To sit in this moment. And to simply stay. It's so easy to get caught up in the machinery of production, in the pressure of performance, in the desire to "get it right." But the truth lives in presence, not perfection.

This applies beautifully to having your portrait taken too. In fact, some of my favorite photographs happen when a subject finally exhausts their catalog of practiced poses and expressions – when they've run out of ways to "be" in front of the camera and simply allow themselves to exist in the moment. There's a profound shift that occurs. The self-consciousness falls away, and something authentic emerges.

Both acting and being photographed invite us into a peculiar paradox: we're most compelling when we stop trying to be compelling. When we release the effort to control how we're seen and instead devote our full attention to the moment at hand – to the scene partner's words, to the weight of our body in the chair, to the sensation of breath – something extraordinary happens. We become present. And presence, that elusive quality everyone talks about, is really just this: being utterly here, utterly now.

The trick isn't in adding something to yourself. It's in taking away all the extra effort, all the masks, all the trying. It's in accepting that you, just as you are in this moment, are enough.

Just this. Here. Now.