It doesn’t matter if you use a box camera or a Leica, the important thing is what motivates you when you are photographing. What I have tried to do is involve the people I was photographing. To have them realize without saying so, that it was up to them to give me whatever they wanted to give me . . . if they were willing to give, I was willing to photograph.

I found a way of working which pleased me because I didn’t have to frighten people with heavy equipment. It was that little black box and me.

If the photographer is interested in the people in front of his lens, and if he is compassionate, it's already a lot. The instrument is not the camera but the photographer.

It's the hardest thing in the world to take the mundane and try to show how special it is.

I don't see anybody as either ordinary or extraordinary. I see them simply as people in front of my lens.

It doesn't matter if you use a box camera or you use a Leica; the important thing is what motivates you when you are photographing.

What do you hang on the walls of your mind?