The dismal half-baked images of the average "reportage" and "documentary" photography are self dammning... the slick manner, the slightly obscure significance, the esoteric fear of simple beauty for its own sake - I am deeply concerned with these manifestations of decay. Gene Smith's work validates my most vigorous convictions that if the documentary photographs is to be truly effective it must contain elements of art, intensity, fine craft and spirituality. All these his work contains and we may turn to his work with gratitude, appreciation and great respect.

A photograph is not an accident - is a concept. It exists at, or before, the moment of exposure of the negative.

The ‘machine-gun’ approach to photography – by which many negatives are made with the hope that one will be good – is fatal to serious results.

You don't make a photograph just with a camera

The photo-journalist and the photo-poet are both important. The problem is to separate the major objectives of the various groups and not to attribute qualities and intentions where they do not belong.

These people live again in print as intensely as when their images were captured on old dry plates of sixty years ago... I am walking in their alleys, standing in their rooms and sheds and workshops, looking in and out of their windows. Any they in turn seem to be aware of me.

To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces.