To take photographs means to recognize - simultaneously and within a fraction of a second - both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is putting one's head, one's eye and one's heart on the same axis.

They ... asked me: 'How do you make your pictures?' I was puzzled ... I said, I don't know, it's not important.

What do you think I'm a professor of? The little finger? (On offers of honorary doctorates.)

One eye of the photographer looks wide open through the viewfinder, the other, the closed looks into his own soul.

...it is seldom indeed that a composition which was poor when the picture was taken can be improved by reshaping it in the dark room.

Photography must seize upon this moment and hold immobile the equilibrium of it. The photographers eye is perpetually evaluating. A photographer can bring coincidence of line simply by moving his head a fraction of a millimeter. He can modify perspectives by a slight bending of the knees. By placing the camera closer to or farther from the subject, he draws a detail — and it can be subordinated, or he can be tyrannized by it.

The most difficult thing for me is a portrait. You have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt.