I read the other day that Minor White said it takes twenty years to become a photographer. I think that is a bit of an exaggeration. I would say, judging from myself, that it takes at least eight or nine years. But it does not take any longer than it takes to learn to play the piano or the violin. If it takes twenty years, you might as well forget about it!

To be a photographer you must have something to say about the world.

Cartier-Bresson has said that photography seizes a 'decisive moment', that's true except that it shouldn't be taken too narrowly...does my picture of a cobweb in the rain represent a decisive moment? The exposure time was probably three or four minutes. That's a pretty long moment. I would say the decisive moment in that case was the moment in which I saw this thing and decided I wanted to photograph it.

All good art is abstract in its structure.

The important thing is, you have to have something important to say about the world.

If the photographer is not a discoverer, then he is not an artist.

I like to photograph people who have strength and dignity in their faces. Whatever life has done to them, it hasn’t destroyed them.