We Know That Photographs Inform People. We

I Started Teaching In '76 And I'd Been A Photographer At The Geographic For Six Years. But Prior To Being At The Geographic I Was A Teacher. Plus My Parents Were Teachers And My Brother And My Grandparents. So It Was The Culture Of Our Family To Think About Teaching, To Talk About Teaching, To Talk About Teachers.

That Statement [ Stephen Ambrose:'you, Sam, Have The Hardest Job, Which Is, Pretend Like Nothing Has Happened In The Last 200 Years.'] Woke Me Up To The Fact That The Landscape That Lewis And Clark Came Across Was Greater Than The Serengeti. And It's Gone.

My Dad Took A Workshop From A Photographer Who Worked At The Toledo Blade, A Newspaper I Delivered. I Knew This Photographer's Work. My Dad Took A Night Class From Him At The University Of Toledo. Without That Class, I Wouldn't Have Become A Photographer, Because My Dad Came Home And Taught Me What He Learned In Class.

"you Know You Are Seeing Such A Photograph If You Say To Yourself, "i Could Have Taken That Picture. I've Seen Such A Scene Before, But Never Like That." It Is The Kind Of Photography That Relies For Its Strengths Not On Special Equipment Or Effects But On The Intensity Of The Photographer's Seeing. It Is The Kind Of Photography In Which The Raw Materials-light, Space, And Shape-are Arranged In A Meaningful And Even Universal Way That Gives Grace To Ordinary Objects."

I Was Asked By A Student What My Most Significant Accomplishment Was At National Geographic, After Thirty Years, And I Said That My Career Came To An Appropriate Close, And I Still Loved Photography. Not Everybody Who Spends Their Career At Anything Ends Up Fascinated And Involved With It.