I had a creative hot streak in the 1940s and since then I’ve been pot boiling.

Even in ordinary reproduction [photography] verges on facsimile.

Photographers have to impose order, bring structure to what they photograph. It is inevitable. A photograph without structure is like a sentence without grammar-it is incomprehensible, even inconceivable.

I know that people think of my work from the '70s as American, but I've been going to other places for a long time.

A photograph has edges the world does not.

A quote that I like very much comes close to explaining my attitude about taking photographs. ‘Chinese poetry rarely trespasses beyond the bounds of actuality the great Chinese poets accept the world exactly as they find it in all its terms and with profound simplicity they seldom talk about one thing in terms of another; but are able enough and sure enough as artists to make the ultimately exact terms become the beautiful terms.’

I don't have to have a single point of emphasis in the picture. It can be complex, because it's so detailed that the viewer can take time and read it, and look at something here, and look at something there, and they can pay attention to a lot more.