And in not learning the rules, I was free. I always say, you're either defined by the medium or you redefine the medium in terms of your needs.

To photograph reality is to photograph 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 think that the photographer must completely control his picture and bring to it all his personality, and in this area most photographs never transcend being just snapshots. When a great photographer does infuse the snapshot with his personality and vision, it can be transformed into something truly moving and beautiful.

To fulfil a fantasy is the quickest way to destroy it.

One of the marvelous things about film is that if you expose it long enough you're going to get a picture.

I think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know. It takes no great powers or magic to reproduce somebody's face in a photograph. The magic is in seeing people in new ways.