There is no closed figure in nature. Every shape participates with another. No one thing is independent of another, and one thing rhymes with another, and light gives them shape.

The adventurer in me felt obliged to testify with a quicker instrument than a brush to the scars of the world.

We must respect the atmosphere which surrounds the human being

With the one eye that is closed, one looks within, with the other eye that is open, one looks without.

Some photographs are like a Chekhov short story or a Maupassant story. They're quick things and there's a whole world in them. But one is unconscious of it while shooting.

Poetry is the essence of everything, and it’s through deep contact with reality and living fully that you reach poetry. Very often I see photographers cultivating the strangeness or awkwardness of a scene, thinking it is poetry. No. Poetry is two elements which are suddenly conflict — a spark between two elements. But it’s given very seldom, and you can’t look for it. It’s like if you look for inspiration. No, it just comes by enriching yourself and living.

Reality offers us such wealth that we must cut some of it out on the spot, simplify. The question is, do we always cut out what we should?