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.

Why limit yourself to what your eyes see when you have an opportunity to extend your vision?

My own eyes are no more than scouts on a preliminary search, or the camera's eye may entirely change my idea.

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.

I don't care if you make a print on a bath mat, just as long as it is a good print.

Arguments against photography ever being considered a fine art are: the element of chance which enters in, — finding things ready-made for a machine to record, and of course the mechanics of the medium. I say that chance enters into all branches of art.

Clouds, torsos, shells, peppers, trees, rocks, smoke stacks, are but interdependent, interrelated parts of a whole, which is life.