A photographer must be prepared to catch and hold on to those elements which give distinction to the subject or lend it atmosphere.

The vital elements are often momentary, change-sent things ... a gleam of light on water, a trail of smoke from a passing train, a cat crossing the threshold. Sometimes they are a matter of luck, sometimes of patience, waiting for an effect to be repeated that you have seen. It is usually some incidental detail that heightens the effect of a picture, stressing a pattern, deepening the sense of atmosphere.

I consider it essential that the photographer should do his own printing and enlarging. The final effect of the finished print depends so much on these operations.

It is part of the photographer's job to see more intensely than most people do. He must have and keep in him something of the receptiveness of the child who looks at the world for the first time or of the traveler who enters a strange country.

In my portraits I try to avoid the fleeting expression and vivacity of a snapshot.

The good photographer will produce a competent picture every time whatever his subject. But only when his subject makes and immediate and direct appeal to his own interests will he produce a work of distinction.

Photography is not a sport. It has no rules. Everything must be dared and tried!