A very big part of the life of a photograph is the afterlife.

My dad had been an ardent amateur photographer, and he taught me to compose a photograph from the back to the front, and then populate the picture.

I was asked by a student what my most significant accomplishment was at National Geographic, after thirty years, and I said that my career came to an appropriate close, and I still loved photography. Not everybody who spends their career at anything ends up fascinated and involved with it.

Increasingly, it's people not interested in National Geographic.

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.

There's a great quote about Virginia Woolf, she had the same spiritual stake in her diaries as she had in her writing.

The reason I don't want to say anything about it is it has a strange power to take over the conversation. Just like it's doing with us. I was asked to participate in a documentary about Richard Prince, and be the voice of someone who was appropriated, and I declined. The reason I did is I don't want it to be the subject of the discussion of my work.