Photography... is either an expression of a cosmic vision, an embodiment of a life movement or it is nothing - to me. (1919)

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

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

Whether a watercolor is inferior to an oil [painting], or whether a drawing, an etching, or a photograph is not as important as either, is inconsequent. To have to despise something in order to respect something else is a sign of impotence.

The portrait of a person is one of the most difficult things to do. It means you must almost bring the presence of that person photographed to other people in such a way that they don't have to know that person personally, but that they are still confronted with a human being that they won't forget. That's a portrait.

No matter what lens you use, no matter what speed the film, no matter how you develop it, no matter how you print it, you cannot say more than you can see.

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