The Unusual Wins Out Over

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.

'woman On The Plaza,' With Its Distinct Horizon, Snow-like Surfaces, Wintry Wall, Stunning Sunlight, Sharp Shadows, And Hurrying Figure, Would Become The Most Biographical Of My Photographs - An Abstract Image Of The Landscape And Life Of Northern Ohio Where I Grew Up And First Practiced Photography.

And That Desire-the Strong Desire To Take Pictures-is Important. It Borders On A Need, Based On A Habit: The Habit Of Seeing. Whether Working Or Not, Photographers Are Looking, Seeing, And Thinking About What They See, A Habit That Is Both A Pleasure And A Problem, For We Seldom Capture In A Single Photograph The Full Expression Of What We See And Feel. It Is The Hope That We Might Express Ourselves Fully-and The Evidence That Other Photographers Have Done So-that Keep Us Taking Pictures.

My First Priority When Taking Pictures Is To Achieve Clarity. A Good Documentary Photograph Transmits The Information Of The Situation With The Utmost Fidelity; Achieving It Means Understanding The Nuances Of Lighting And Composition, And Also Remembering To Keep The Lenses Clean And The Cameras Steady.

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.