Art, if it is successful, needs no explanation. Star Trek and Spock, if they are works of art, can be discussed. But finally the response comes in individual terms. Each viewer sees what is there for him, depending on his frame of reference.
I think it's my adventure, my trip, my journey, and I guess my attitude is, let the chips fall where they may.
I turned off the talking politicos. Too much jabbering at each other. Not enough care about humans.
I've enjoyed photography, ever since I was a teenager, and I'm still at it. I've had shows in various cities, around the country, and I have a number of pieces in permanent collections in museums that I'm very proud of.
After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but is often true.
These are beautiful days. Folks ask what I'm doing. I tell them I'm doing family.
I don't have a preference for bad people, no. I have an interest in playing a broad range of characters. Obviously, I'm mostly identified with a character who is very responsible, very solid and very intelligent, but there are plenty of questionable characters in my past career. I'm interested in exploring theatricality and characters with some dimension.
Fascinating is a word I use for the unexpected, in this case I would think interesting would suffice.
I consider myself more spiritual than religious.
Interesting. You Earth people glorify organized violence for 40 centuries, but you imprison those who employ it privately.
What fiction could match - in drama or suspense - man's first walk on the Moon?
Making photos is helpful of course to master the craft. To get comfortable with the camera. Learn what a camera can do and how to use the camera successfully. Doing exercises for example if you try to find out things that the camera can do that the eye cannot do. So that you have a tool that will do what you need to be done. But then once you have mastered the craft the most important thing is to determine why you want to shoot pictures and what you want to shoot pictures of. That's where the thematic issue comes to life.
If you are walking down the street, camera in your hand, loaded and ready to shoot. You see a person falling from a high building, either having fallen or jumped. That person is falling through space. You don't shoot that photograph unless the theme you are working on has to do with the effects of space on the human figure. If you simply photograph that event because it is an event that is happening, you're doing photojournalism.
May I say that I have not thoroughly enjoyed serving with humans? I find their illogic and foolish emotions a constant irritant.
What I'm exploring right now is the subject of my own mortality, It's an area that I'm curious about, and I'm researching it to see if there's a photographic essay in it for me. If images don't start to come, I'll go to something else.
Some words having to do with the death of the people in the World Trade Center attack had been added, and when I got to it, I had this overwhelmingly emotional experience. I struggled to get through the words; tears were streaming down my cheeks.
I'm attracted to images that come from a personal exploration of a subject matter. When they have a personal stamp to them, then I think it becomes identifiable.
The voice thing is a blessing that I was given. I've had opportunities to do voice work of all kinds. It was something that was given to me and I was able to make good use of it.
For me it's all about personal vision; is there something about a subject that uniquely speaks to me.
I began working with a family camera. It was called a Kodak Autographic, which was one of those things where you flopped it open and pulled out the bellows. And I've been at it ever since - I've never stopped
Years ago - in the 70s, for about a decade - I carried a camera every place I went. And I shot a lot of pictures that were still life and landscape, using available light.
Judging by the pollution content of the atmosphere, I believe we have arrived at the late twentieth century.
There are a lot of photographers who have influenced me; some of the great ones, like Herb Ritts, Helmut Newton, and [Alfred] Stieglitz. I draw from all of them. You're supposed to steal from the good ones.
I am intrigued with scriptural mythology that tells us that God created a divine feminine presence to dwell amongst humanity. This concept has had a constant influence on the work. I have imagined her as ubiquitous, watchful, and often in motion. This work is, in effect, the photographic image of the invisible.
There was a very small crowd - minuscule compared to the crowd that he gathered later - at a private home in Los Angeles. And we were standing on the back patio, waiting for him. And he came through the house, saw me and immediately put his hand up in the Vulcan gesture. He said, 'They told me you were here.' We had a wonderful, brief conversation and I said, 'It would be logical if you would become president.'
