The weirdest thing to me is that magazines would never do this for their writers. They would never hire a writer who writes for another magazine; they want to have their own stable of writers. Newsweek would never hire a TIME writer, and TIME would never hire a Newsweek writer - but they would both hire the same photographer to shoot a cover for them.

To me, style is like your fingerprint. Nobody else has it.

There's no reason you'd shoot Mother Theresa and Newt Gingrich the same way.

The picture I was hoping for is never the picture I get, but yeah, I think they fail all the time. Fortunately my clients don't think they do, so I can continue to have a career. But I just look at them and think.

I hate to say it because I think people are risk averse these days more than ever. Before they even pick up the phone, they know what the picture's going to be. So there's a certain comfort in that, a certain security that they can lay out the cover of the magazine and kind of know what it's going to be.

The work is primarily subject-driven. All decisions flow from there. The photographs are all made in response to a unique subject, in particular context, at a specific moment in time. The thoughtful preparedness that defines my working method actually facilitates spontaneity and allows me to embrace surprise. I always have a game plan but view it as merely the jumping off point.

I never do pictures that I've done before - but I really try not to. Whenever I get an assignment I try to think how to shoot this person for this story in this magazine at this point in time.