There is no particular reason to search for meaning.

My friend who I went to boarding school with was interested in photography. He insisted that I buy a camera and marched me downtown.

Whatever it is about pictures, photographs, it's just about impossible to follow up with words. They don't have anything to do with each other.

I had the attitude that I would work with this present-day material and do the best I could to describe it with photography, not intending to make any particular comment about whether it was good or bad or whether I liked it or not. It was just there, and I was interested in it. That's what I still do today.

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.

Well, probably the best way to put it might be that at some time, not just in an instant, but over some period of time I became aware of the fact that I wanted to document examples like Kroger or Piggly Wiggly in the late '50s, early '60s.

Unfortunately they're practically all dead. And many were my closest associates: friends, co-directors, whatever you want to say - my partners in crime.