Usually when painters use photographs, they enlarge and copy them and simply make a large, boring painting of a large, boring photograph.

The majority of photographers focus on the obvious. They believe and accept what their eyes tell them, and yet eyes know nothing.

I write in order to express what the photo itself cannot say. A photograph of my father doesn't tell me what I thought of him, which for me is much more important than what the man looked like.

I still find doing portraits a terrific challenge, but even though I've done hundreds of them, I've never stopped questioning the very nature of portraiture because it deals exclusively with appearances. I've never believed people are what they look like and think it's impossible to really know what people are.

All good work has magic in it, and addresses the mind in a subtle way.

Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be.

I believe in the invisible. I do not believe in the definitive reality of things around us. For me, reality is the intuition and the imagination and the quiet voice inside my head that says: isn't that extraordinary? The things in our lives are the shadows of reality, just as we ourselves are shadows.