Today my passion is still black and white. Today if I have an array of cameras in front of me the one I would reach for that I would feel most comfortable with would be a 4 X 5 View camera. I was once working in a sort of soft light situation.

There is a considerable amount of manipulation in the printmaking from the straight photograph to the finished print. If I do my job correctly that shouldn't be visible at all, it should be transparent.

I make photographs and still make photographs of the natural environment. It's a love because that was part of my life before I was involved in photography.

You can also see sometimes that the best pictures are the ones where you didn't try so hard, where you were just enjoying the process - and you didn't even know why you were making the picture. It felt right. If someone asked, 'Why are you making this picture?' you probably couldn't describe it very well - and that's why it needs to be a photograph.

Whatever it takes to get the image to reach that level is what that photographer needs to do.

It had rained on some vivid green ferns in Maine and it was quite beautiful. I was moving the camera slightly and studying the ground glass. Looking at those 20 square inches, trying to find out just what were the right elements to include.

It's not a question of getting the opportunities, it's a question of noticing that opportunities are there.