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

The unusual wins out over the usual.

I think of myself as a writer who photographs. Images, for me, can be considered poems, short stories or essays. And I've always thought the best place for my photographs was inside books of my own creation.

Even though I teach with 35mm, my method takes people by surprise, because it isn't fast, and it isn't about hardware or software, or even great results. It's about great process.

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.

It's a little bit like talking about the life of writing. The life of writing may be about many things, but it always begins with the writer. With the kernel of an idea, or a character, or an idea or a theme, or even an outcome. But for documentary photographers, photographs begin at that intersection of the real world and the imaginative inner world.

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.