One thing that struck me early is that you don’t put into a photograph what’s going to come out. Or, vice versa, what comes out is not what you put in.

What moves me about...what's called technique...is that it comes from some mysterious deep place. I mean it can have something to do with the paper and the developer and all that stuff, but it comes mostly from some very deep choices somebody has made that take a long time and keep haunting them.

What I'm trying to describe is that it's impossible to get out of your skin into somebody else's.... That somebody else's tragedy is not the same as your own.

Everything is so superb and breathtaking. I am creeping forward on my belly like they do in war movies.

I'm very little drawn to photographing people that are known or even subjects that are known. They fascinate me when I've barely heard of them.

...I would never choose a subject for what it means to me. I choose a subject and then what I feel about it, what it means, begins to unfold.

Nudists are fond of saying that when you come right down to it everyone is alike, and, again, that when you come right down to it everyone is different.