Essentially What Photography Is Is Life Lit

"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."

Even Though I Teach With 35mm, My Method Takes People By Surprise, Because It Isn't Fast, And It Isn't About Hardware Or Software, Or Even Great Results. It's About Great Process.

I Have This Awareness That The More Dynamic The Situation Is, The More On Guard I Need To Be That The Dynamic Isn't Controlling The Situation. I Found That Myself In The Galapagos. For The First Time In My Life I Was Around Very Exotic Animals, Colorful, Beautiful, And Immediately Present, All Around. Birds, Turtles, Iguanas, Seals. I Was Being Seduced By Their Exoticism, I Was Taking Pictures.the Pictures Weren't Well Lit, There Was No Moment In Play, There Was No Depth To The Pictures. I Was Just Gawking With My Camera At Something I'd Never Seen Before.

Photography, Alone Of The Arts, Seems Perfected To Serve The Desire Humans Have For A Moment - This Very Moment - To Stay.

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.