I use the term “genre” in the traditional sense of 17th century painting, meaning scenes from everyday life — of ordinary people at work, at home or in recreation. I distinguish this concept from portraiture where the sitter and the painter/photographer are obviously engaged with each other. The people in genre painting are generally focused on occurrences in their everyday world. My favorite works by such painters as Vermeer, Hammershøi, Hopper and Andrew Wyeth fall within this category. This distinction has only recently become apparent to me in the context of photography.