I am a professional photographer by trade and an amateur photographer by vocation.

I wasn't imposing my presence on anyone, which is very important for a would- be journalist. I stayed back. Always let people be themselves.

All the technique in the world doesn't compensate for the inability to notice.

Everybody's got to do something... I'd been on my own since an early age and I thought I better find something to do to buy biscuits and stuff. From high school onwards I was earning my way with photography, one way or another, working in darkrooms and taking pictures of weddings, neighbors' children and so on.

If you're not a curious person, you're certainly not going to be a good photographer.

After following the crowd for a while, I'd then go 180 degrees in the exact opposite direction. It always worked for me.

Quality doesn't mean deep blacks and whatever tonal range. That's not quality, that's a kind of quality. The pictures of Robert Frank might strike someone as being sloppy-the tone range isn't right and things like that-but they're far superior to the pictures of Ansel Adams with regard to quality, because the quality of Ansel Adams, if I may say so, is essentially the quality of a postcard. But the quality of Robert Frank is a quality that has something to do with what he's doing, what his mind is. It's not balancing out the sky to the sand and so forth. It's got to do with intention.