To me, photography is 90% a retrospective experience. There's the part of pursuing the image, and exposing the film, but once you make the exposure, you're always looking backwards in time. I like that aspect of photography.

When I'm about ready to press the cable release on the View camera, I've tried to anticipate some of the challenges I'm going to encounter in the darkroom.

Whatever it takes to get the image to reach that level is what that photographer needs to do. And for me, I just have such a love of the tactile and sensuous quality of a black and white silver gelatin print.

I've found even after nearly 30 years of doing this, there are all kinds of new surprises that rear their heads at various times and I truly believe that 51% of the images, success takes place in the darkroom.

It was an experience that was exceptional. People frequently ask what it was like and it truly was inspiring. Sometimes during his lifetime, people would try and put him on a pedestal and that's not where he wanted to be, but he was really a great individual.

We all start in this medium because of the magic and the challenge is to keep it going.

I find the surface of a photograph a thing of beauty in and of itself, and it is this surface that makes a photograph unique relative to other two-dimensional media.