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

Ultimately success or failure in photographing people depends on the photographer's ability to understand his fellow man.

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.

My true program is summed up in one word: life. I expect to photograph anything suggested by that word which appeals to me.

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.

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

A photograph has no value unless it looks exactly like a photograph and nothing else.