I always work better when I do not reason, when no question of right or wrong enter in,-when my pulse quickens to the form before me without hesitation nor calculation.

The photographer's most important and likewise most difficult task is not learning to manage his camera, or to develop, or to print. It is learning to see photographically — that is, learning to see his subject matter in terms of the capacities of his tools and processes, so that he can instantaneously translate the elements and values in a scene before him into the photograph he wants to make.

No photographer is better than the simplest of cameras

I was extravagant in the matter of cameras - anything photographic - I had to have the best. But that was to further my work. In most things I have gone along with the plainest - or without.

This then: to photograph a rock, have it look like a rock, but be more than a rock.

If I have any 'message' worth giving to a beginner it is that there are no short cuts in photography.

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.