When You Abide In The

The Only Things That Distinguish The Photographer From Everybody Else Are His Pictures: They Alone Are The Basis For Our Special Interest In Him. If Pictures Cannot Be Understood Without Knowing Details Of The Artist's Private Life, Then That Is A Reason For Faulting Them; Major Art, By Definition, Can Stand Independent Of Its Maker.

I Began Making Pictures Because I Wanted To Record What Supports Hope: The Untranslatable Mystery And Beauty Of The World. Along The Way, However, The Camera Also Caught Evidence Against Hope, And I Eventually Concluded That This, Too, Belonged In Pictures If They Were To Be Truthful And Thus Useful.

All These Years You've Been Searching And Looking And Trying To Change Things, Trying To Add Thing Onto Yourself, Trying To Acquire Things When You Have Been The Source Of Everything To Begin With. Everything You've Been Looking For Has Been Within Yourself You Have Been That. You Then Begin To Surrender Everything To Yourself. You Surrender All Of Your Thoughts, All Of Your Feelings, You Surrender All Of Your Desires, All Of Your Wants To The Self. You Pull It In All Inwardly.

At Our Best And Most Fortunate We Make Pictures Because Of What Stands Before Our Camera, To Honor What Is Greater And More Interesting Than We Are. We Never Accomplish This Perfectly, Though In Return We Are Given Something Perfect--a Sense Of Inclusion. Our Subject Thus Redefines Us, And Is Part Of The Biography By Which We Want To Be Known.

Part Of The Difficulty In Trying To Be Both An Artist And A Businessperson Is This: You Make A Picture Because You Have Seen Something Beyond Price; Then You Are To Turn And Assign To Your Record Of It A Cash Value. If The Selling Is Not Necessarily A Contradiction Of The Truth In The Picture, It Is So Close To Being A Contradiction—and The Truth Is Always In Shades Of Gray-that You Are Worn Down By The Threat.