By sight and observation and thought, with the help of the camera, and the addition of the date of the year, we can hold fast the history of the world.

... mortification is basic to the act of photographing. The person is mobile, ... then I freeze one moment in his movement, a mere five-hundredth of a second of that person's life-time. That's a very meager or small extract from a life.

Therefore, let me in honesty speak the truth about our epoch and people.

Nothing is more hateful to me than photography coated with gimmicks, poses and false effects. Therefore let me speak the truth in all honesty about our age and the people of our age

I hate nothing more than sugary photographs with tricks, poses and effects. So allow me to be honest ?and tell the truth about our age and its people.

I never made a person look bad. They do that themselves.

Pure photography allows us to create portraits which render their subjects with absolute truth, truth both physical and psychological. That is the principal which provided my starting point, once I had said to myself that if we can create portraits of subjects that are true, we thereby in effect create a mirror of the times in which those subjects live.