The two ideas are antithetical. Insofar as photography is (or should be) about the world, the photographer counts for little, but insofar as it is the instrument of intrepid, questioning subjectivity, the photographer is all.

The only transformation that interests me is a total transformation - however minute

Silence remains, inescapably, a form of speech.

Despite the illusion of giving understanding, what seeing through photographs really invites is an acquisitive relation to the world that nourishes aesthetic awareness and promotes emotional detachment.

Enemies are somewhere else, as the fighting is almost always “over there,” with Islamic fundamentalism now replacing Russian and Chinese communism as the implacable, furtive menace. And “terrorist” is a more flexible word than “communist.” It can unify a larger number of quite different struggles and interests. What this may mean is that the war will be endless---since there will always be some terrorism.

Fear of sexuality is the new, disease-sponsored register of the universe of fear in which everyone now lives.

AIDS obliges people to think of sex as having, possibly, the direst consequences: suicide. Or murder.