Exotic novelty. My statement to [people] is always, well, set this picture in your home town, is it still an interesting picture? Or is it just exotic? Would I care about this same picture minus its exoticism?

Photography, alone of the arts, seems perfected to serve the desire humans have for a moment - this very moment - to stay.

I can't speak for other photographers, but the photographers who went forward strongly when the so-called "official" part of their career ended, to me, were those who had taught. Teaching enriches and enlivens one's work.

I now want to be a photographer of my time, and our common culture.

Aboriginal Australia is a tough place to work, rough and tough.

There are a lot of ways to talk about the life of a photograph. You can talk about the afterlife of a photograph, and in the end I talk about that, with the Richard Prince picture. But mainly, what I dedicated the book to being about was how photographs begin their life, and where they begin it. And they begin it with the photographer's imagination and instinct and experience.

[ My time and our common culture] it's what I'm photographing, and I'm very involved with that.