They were ... pure and unadulterated photographs, and sometimes they hinted at the existence of visual truths that had escaped all other systems of detection.

The goal is not to make something factually impeccable, but seamlessly persuasive.

To quote out of context is the essence of the photographer's craft.

Whatever else a photograph may be about, it is inevitably about photography, the container and vehicle of all its meanings.

The invention of photography provided a radically new picture-making process - a process based not on synthesis but on selection. The difference was a basic one. Paintings were made - constructed from a storehouse of traditional schemes and skills and attitudes - but photographs, as the man on the street put, were taken.

The basic material of photographs is not intrinsically beautiful. It's not like ivory or tapestry or bronze or oil on canvas. You're not supposed to look at the thing, you're supposed to look through it. It's a window.

Luck is the attentive photographer's best teacher.