The artist is one who makes a concentrated statement about the world in which he lives and that statement tends to become impersonal-it tends to become universal and enduring because it comes out of something very particular.

It has always been my belief that the true artist, like the true scientist, is a researcher using materials and techniques to dig into the truth and meaning of the world in which he himself lives; and what he creates, or better perhaps, brings back, are the objective results of his explorations. The measure of his talent--of his genius, if you will--is the richness he finds in such a life's voyage of discovery and the effectiveness with which he is able to embody it through his chosen medium.

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

And if you can find out something about the laws of your own growth and vision as well as those of photography you may be able to relate the two, create an object that has a life of its own, which transcends craftsmanship. That is a long road, and because it must be your own road nobody can teach it to you or find it for you. There are no shortcuts, no rules.

The documentary photographer aims his camera at the real world to record truthfulness. At the same time, he must strive for form, to devise effective ways of organizing and using the material. For content and form are interrelated. The problems presented by content and form must be so developed that the result is fundimentally [sic] true to the realities of life as we know it. The chief problem is to find a form that adequately represents the reality.

All good art is abstract in its structure.

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.