I see no reason for recording the obvious.

Now, to consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravity before going for a walk.

The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself, whether it be polished steel or palpitating flesh.

A lifetime can well be spent correcting and improving one's own faults without bothering about others.

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

Now one does not think during creative work: any more than one thinks when driving a car. One has a background of years — learning — unlearning— success — failure — dreaming — thinking — experience — back it goes — farther back than one's ancestors: all this, — then the moment of creation, the focussing of all into the moment. So I can make — "without thought" — fifteen carefully-considered negatives one every fifteen minutes, — given material with as many possibilities.

People who wouldn't think of taking a sieve to the well to draw water fail to see the folly in taking a camera to make a painting.