The pictures of my family were designed to be on a family wall, they were supposed to be together. It was supposed to copy my mother's wall in her house.

My early childhood equipped me really well for my portrait work: The quick encounter, where you are not going to know the subject for very long. These days I am much more comfortable with the fifteen minute relationship, than I am with a life long relationship.

I don't try to overintellectua lize my concepts of people. In fact, the ideas I have, if you talk about them, they seem extremely corny and it's only in their execution that people can enjoy them...It's something I've learned to trust: The stupider it is, the better it looks.

When I was younger, I did things with a camera I would not do by myself. I remember going down to the docks in San Francisco and asking a fisherman if he would take me out on his boat. I would never do that without a camera.

Photography is not something you retire from.

The pictures of my family were designed to be on a family wall, they were supposed to be together. It was supposed to copy my mother's wall in her house.

When I started working for Rolling Stone, I became very interested in journalism and thought maybe that's what I was doing, but it wasn't.