I don't care how you photograph - use the kitchen mop if you must, but if the product is not true to the laws of photography... you have produced something that is dead. (1923)

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!

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

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.

I think of myself as an explorer who has spent his life on a long voyage of discovery.

All light is available light.

It is easy to make a picture of someone and call it a portrait. The difficulty lies in making a picture that makes the viewer care about a stranger.