It matters little how much equipment we use; it matters much that we be masters of all we do use.

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.

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

I started teaching in '76 and I'd been a photographer at the Geographic for six years. But prior to being at the Geographic I was a teacher. Plus my parents were teachers and my brother and my grandparents. So it was the culture of our family to think about teaching, to talk about teaching, to talk about teachers.

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

I will just say, appropriation is an intellectual idea until it happens to you. It's a philosophy, and it's got its own intellectual framework. Then there's what happens when it's your photograph. Then it's personal, and that's all I'll say.

Photographs that transcend but do not deny their literal situation appeal to me.