The fundamental issue is one of emphasis: you are not a photographer because you are interested in photography...The reason is that photography is only a tool, a vehicle, for expressing or transmitting a passion in something else. It is not the end result.

My advice is: learn from the best or teach yourself. And do not bother at all if you do not have an exaggerated sense of curiosity.

For me photography is an excuse to be nosy about things I want to know about.

Learn from the best; the second raters have nothing to offer.

Life as it unfolds in front of the camera is full of so much complexity, wonder and surprise that I find it unnecessary to create new realities. There is more pleasure, for me, in things as-they-are.

You are not a photographer because you are interested in photography.

...one day I was speculating on how I would like to look back on life and I decided I wanted to feel that I was a photographer rather than a teacher. As simple as that.