The slideshow "is a very primitive form that quickly becomes predictable and repetitive."

One cannot always summarize massive issues by looking at the life of one person or one family, or even one community.

We have to tell people how images are made. And, the first step is to abandon the idea we're looking at photographs. We're looking at entry points to information and to the world in which the image was made.

Many who are making cellphone images are advocates with a stake in the outcome of what they are depicting. In some ways this makes their work more honest and easier to read - they can also manipulate, although the work of professionals can be quite manipulative as well.

We have a long history of snapshot photography that appeared to many to be more arbitrary and idiosyncratic than much of the work of professionals. We valued it for what it could tell us about the details of people's daily lives.

Word, image, and sound all must have primacy in the development of the narrative.

The photograph that discovers and uncovers the world is harder to simulate than an image that simply illustrates one's ideas about it.