The immediate reviews were very hostile, but they didn't bother me-I had the attitude that I was right. The poor guys who were critics just didn't understand the works at all. I was sorry about that, but it didn't weigh on my mind a bit.

Often people ask what I'm photographing, which is a hard question to answer. And the best what I've come up with is I just say: Life today.

Black-and-white photography, which I was doing in the very early days, was essentially called art photography and usually consisted of landscapes by people like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. But photographs by people like Adams didn't interest me.

Generally, that's what happens-a fundamental rotting of the idea. They woke up with the wrong idea. It's just like music: If you don't have an innate love or calling for it, then no matter how much you study or how well you can play by looking at the score, it doesn't mean that you're going to make really good music.

And what we called photojournalism, the photos seen in places like Life magazine, didn't interest me either. They were just not good-there was no art there. The first person who I respected immensely was Henri Cartier-Bresson. I still do.

It was something new that was happening everywhere. You couldn't miss it. If you needed to go to the grocery you would go to the predecessors of the big supermarkets of today.

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.