[ My Time And Our Common Culture]

Exotic Novelty. My Statement To [people] Is Always, Well, Set This Picture In Your Home Town, Is It Still An Interesting Picture? Or Is It Just Exotic? Would I Care About This Same Picture Minus Its Exoticism?

I Did It Once, And National Geographic Recruited Me. I Did It Primarily Out Of Curiosity. A Lot Of Legendary Photographers Had Worked On That Campaign. Ernst Haas Had Done The Early Photography, And I Knew Him. There's A Lore In Photography About That Campaign, And I Was Curious.

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.

Life Rarely Presents Fully Finished Photographs. An Image Evolves, Often From A Single Strand Of Visual Interest - A Distant Horizon, A Moment Of Light, A Held Expression.

I Was Giving A Lecture And I Said, That's Enough About The Photographic Life, Meaning My Biography, Now Let's Talk About The Life Of A Photograph. And In That One Instant I Got The Title For A Potential Next Book.