I start with no preconceived idea - discovery excites me to focus - then rediscovery through the lens - final form of presentation seen on ground glass, the finished print previsioned completely in every detail of texture, movement, proportion, before exposure - the shutter's release automatically and finally fixes my conception, allowing no after manipulation - the ultimate end, the print, is but a duplication of all that I saw and felt through my camera.

Good composition is merely the strongest way of seeing.

To compose a subject well means no more than to see and present it in the strongest manner possible.

I want the stark beauty that a lens can so exactly render presented without interference of artistic effect.

An excellent conception can be quite obscured by faulty technical execution or clarified by faultless technique.

I find myself every so often looking at my ground glass as though the unrecorded image might escape me!

I see no reason for recording the obvious.