Black and white photography is truly quite a 'departure from reality', and the transition from one aspect of visual magic to another was not as complete as many imagine.

There are no forms in nature. Nature is a vast, chaotic collection of shapes. You as an artist create configurations out of chaos. You make a formal statement where there was none to begin with. All art is a combination of an external event and an internal event… I make a photograph to give you the equivalent of what I felt. Equivalent is still the best word.

When I'm ready to make a photograph, I think I quite obviously see in my minds eye something that is not literally there in the true meaning of the word. I'm interested in something which is built up from within, rather than just extracted from without.

There still is some opposition to it in some museums and art schools, but I think photography has really grown into a mature art form.

Let us leave a splendid legacy for our children...let us turn to them and say, this you inherit: guard it well, for it is far more precious than money...and once destroyed, nature's beauty cannot be repurchased at any price.

If you have enough craft, you've done your homework and you're practiced. You can then make the photograph you desire.

My last word s that it all depends on what you visualize.