Essentially What Photography Is Is Life Lit

The Reason I Don't Want To Say Anything About It Is It Has A Strange Power To Take Over The Conversation. Just Like It's Doing With Us. I Was Asked To Participate In A Documentary About Richard Prince, And Be The Voice Of Someone Who Was Appropriated, And I Declined. The Reason I Did Is I Don't Want It To Be The Subject Of The Discussion Of My Work.

The Neatest Part Of This Book I'm Working On - To Me - Are The Pictures That Show The Process... Because Photographers... Think Things Through And... It Isn't Luck, And It Isn't Random And It Isn't Accidental. It Isn't.

For Spiritual Companions I Have Had The Many Artists Who Have Relied On Nature To Help Shape Their Imagination. And Their Most Elaborate Equipment Was A Deep Reverence For The World Through Which They Passed. Photographers Share Something With These Artists. We Seek Only To See And To Describe With Our Own Voices, And, Though We Are Seldom Heard As Soloists, We Cannot Photograph The World In Any Other Way.

Photographs That Transcend But Do Not Deny Their Literal Situation Appeal To Me.

I Did It Once, And National Geographic Recruited Me. I Did It Primarily Out Of Curiosity. A Lot Of Legendary Photographers Had Worked On That Campaign. Ernst Haas Had Done The Early Photography, And I Knew Him. There's A Lore In Photography About That Campaign, And I Was Curious.