Photograph the world as it is. Nothing's more interesting than reality.
It’s not when you press the shutter, but why you press the shutter.
I'm interested in reality, and I'm interested in survival. I'm interested in people who aren't the lucky ones, who maybe have a tougher time surviving, and telling their story.
Finding the right subject is the hardest part.
I just think it's important to be direct and honest with people about why you're photographing them and what you're doing. After all, you are taking some of their soul.
Reality is always extraordinary.
I don't think you can develop or learn a way of seeing or a point of view. A way of seeing is who you are, how you think and how you create images. It is something that is inside of you. It's how you look at the world.
In a portrait, you always leave part of yourself behind.
A great photograph needs no explanation; it functions by suggestion. There is no need to be explicit.
I’m just interested in people on the edges. I feel an affinity for people who haven’t had the best breaks in society. What I want to do more than anything is acknowledge their existence.
I think you have to have a real point of view that's your own. You have to tell it your way. And, I think that it's a mistake to shoot for a specific magazine's point of view because it's never going to be as good. You have to shoot for yourself and photograph [ the way] you believe it.
I work in colour sometimes, but I guess the images I most connect to, historically speaking, are in black and white. I see more in black and white - I like the abstraction of it.
The difficulty with color is to go beyond the fact that it's color ? to have it be not just a colorful picture but really be a picture about something. It's difficult. So often color gets caught up in color, and it becomes merly decorative. Some photographers use it brilliantly to make visual statements combining color and content; otherwise it is empty.
Usually my ideas for work have revolved around my interest in people, especially people that live on the edges of society.
If you are interested in photography because you love it and are obsessed with it, you must be self-motivated, a perfectionist, and relentless.
No, I don't think you're ever an objective observer. By making a frame you're being selective, then you edit the pictures you want published and you're being selective again. You develop a point of view that you want to express. You try to go into a situation with an open mind, but then you form an opinion, and you express it in your photographs.
I'm a documentary photographer. That's what I've always wanted to be; that's where my heart and soul is.
Everyone asks me how I get my subjects to open up to me. There’s no formula to it. It’s just a matter of who you are and how you talk to people - of being yourself.
I think you reveal yourself by what you choose to photograph, but I prefer photographs that tell more about the subject. There's nothing much interesting to tell about me; what's interesting is the person I'm photographing, and that's what I try to show. [...] I think each photographer has a point of view and a way of looking at the world... that has to do with your subject matter and how you choose to present it. What's interesting is letting people tell you about themselves in the picture.
The obsessions we have are pretty much the same our whole lives. Mine are people, the human condition, life.
I'm not against digital photography. It's great for newspapers. And there are photographers doing great work digitally. When they use Photoshop as a darkroom tool, that's fine, too. But at this point of my life, after so many years, I don't really want to change, and I still love film.
One of my all-time favorite photographers is Irving Penn. I wish I could have watched him work.
That's the way I learned photography: You make your picture in the camera. Now, so much is made in the computer. ... I'm not anti-digital, I just think, for me, film works better.
I’m trying to please myself; certainly that’s a big criterion... though in a sense, I don’t take images just for myself. I take images that I think other people will want to see. I don’t take pictures to put in a box and hide them. I want as many people to see them as possible.
The subject gives you the best idea of how to make a photograph. So I just wait for something to happen.
