You've got a lot going for you, you see. By just describing well with it, something happens.

I had an agent. When [Edward] Steichen was doing "The Family of Man", I went up to the office one day. I think Wayne Miller, who assisted Steichen with "The Family of Man," was up there and pulled out a bunch of pictures. So I got a message: "Take these pictures, call Steichen, make an appointment and take these pictures up there." And that's how I met him.

I really try to divorce myself from any thought of possible use of this stuff. That's part of the discipline. My only purpose while I'm working is to try to make interesting photographs, and what to do with them is another act - an alter consideration. Certainly while I'm working, I want them to be as useless as possible.

What you photograph is responsible for how a photograph looks - the form, the design, whatever word you want to use.

Teaching is only interesting because you struggle with trying to talk about photographs, photographs that work, you see.

Let's say that what's out there is a narrative. Often enough, the picture plays with the question of what actually is happening. Almost the way puns function.

I was a hired gun, more or less.