The fundamental issue is one of emphasis: you are not a photographer because you are interested in photography...The reason is that photography is only a tool, a vehicle, for expressing or transmitting a passion in something else. It is not the end result.

It is the purpose of life that each of us strives to become actually what he or she is potentially. Each photographer, then, should be obsessed with stretching towards that goal through an understanding of others and the world we inhabit. When that happens, the results, like photographs, are really the expressions of the life of the maker.

My advice is: learn from the best or teach yourself. And do not bother at all if you do not have an exaggerated sense of curiosity.

I never claim my photographs reveal some definitive truth. I claim that this is what I saw and felt about the subject at the time the pictures were made. That's all that any photographer can claim. I do not know any great photographer who would presume otherwise.

These are the two basic controls at the photographer's command--positi on and timing--all others are extensions, peripheral ones, compared to them

Learn from the best; the second raters have nothing to offer.

In previous ages the word 'art' was used to cover all forms of human skill. The Greeks believed that these skills were given by the gods to man for the purpose of improving the condition of life. In a real sense, photography has fulfilled the Greek ideal of art; it should not only improve the photographer, but also improve the world.