My Dad took a workshop from a photographer who worked at the Toledo Blade, a newspaper I delivered. I knew this photographer's work. My Dad took a night class from him at the University of Toledo. Without that class, I wouldn't have become a photographer, because my Dad came home and taught me what he learned in class.

I think that it's workshops, honestly, that have kept me keen about photography, and about my photography. My career as a workshop photographer came while I was at the Geographic in the late 70's, and has continued consistently since then.

For example, in my dorm, at the University of Kentucky, I had the only camera. I don't think anyone came to college with a camera, other than me.

One of the things that I most believe in is the compose and wait philosophy of photography. It’s a very satisfying, almost spiritual way to photograph. Life isn't’ knocking you around, life isn't controlling you. You have picked your place, you’ve picked your scene, you’ve picked your light, you’ve done all the decision making and you are waiting for the moment to come to you.

I'm very involved in photographing America now, so I don't think of faraway places, as I did when I was young.

This might seem off the track, but an interesting thing to me that others could talk about better than I, but one of the growth areas in photographic education has been the so-called slow photography.

We know that photographs inform people. We also know that photographs move people. The photograph that does both is the one we want to see and make.