I would go there quite frequently. I met and became close with John Szarkowski of the Museum of Modern Art. He was incredibly supportive about me working in color.

I am afraid that there are more people than I can imagine who can go no further than appreciating a picture that is a rectangle with an object in the middle of it, which they can identify.

We have a few things in common - smoking, drinking, and women. Photography just gets us out of the house. (To photographer Juergen Teller)

A picture is what it is and I've never noticed that it helps to talk about them, or answer specific questions about them, much less volunteer information in words. It wouldn't make any sense to explain them. Kind of diminishes them. People always want to know when something was taken, where it was taken, and, God knows, why it was taken. It gets really ridiculous. I mean, they're right there, whatever they are.

I want to make a picture that could stand on its own, regardless of what it was a picture of. I've never been a bit interested in the fact that this was a picture of a blues musician or a street corner or something.

I don't think that has ever changed. I don't think I see any more or any less than I did years ago. Let's say I have the print of a photo taken in the 1960s and one I took a month ago. I think it's pretty difficult to tell any difference, personally.

I only ever take one picture of one thing. Literally. Never two. So then that picture is taken and then the next one is waiting somewhere else.