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.

I really don't have any secrets. I've never met a photographer whose work I respected that had a secret because the secret lies within each and every one of us.

Having photographed the landscape for a number of years and specifically working with trees and in the forest I found, without consciously thinking about it, that it was a great learning experience for me in terms of organizing elements.

So to me it's very similar in terms of trying to distill within the image, those elements that are gonna form, hopefully, a compelling visual statement.

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.

I think one of the aspects of photography that remains for me is I find the process still frustrating. The counter to that is that it's still very exciting. If you didn't have the frustration, you wouldn't have the excitement. If you didn't have the disappointment, you wouldn't have the magical intoxication of this process working.

I think the greatest photographers are the amateur photographers who do it because they love it. Arnold Newman is a good example; he is a consummate professional, but he's also an 'amateur' in the pure sense of the word.