If all your life means to you is water running over rocks, then photograph it, but I want to create something that would not have existed without me.

All photographs are self-portraits.

No matter how slow the film, Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer It has chosen.

It is curious that I always want to group things, a series of sonnets, a series of photographs; whatever rationalizations appear, they originate in urges that are rarely satisfied with single images.

The state of mind of the photographer creating is a blank. I might add that this condition exists only at special times, namely when looking for pictures. -Something keeps him from falling off curbs, down open manholes, into bumpers of skidding trucks while in this condition but goes off duty at other times. . . . This is a very special kind of blank. A very active state of mind really, it is a very receptive state. . .

Sometimes we work so fast that we don't really understand what's going on in front of the camera. We just kind of sense that, 'Oh my God, it's significant!' and photograph impulsively while trying to get the exposure right. Exposure occupies my mind while intuition frames the images.

Students were taught by doing.