I Wanted Life To Be Episodic. I

[ My Time And Our Common Culture] It's What I'm Photographing, And I'm Very Involved With That.

There Are A Lot Of Ways To Talk About The Life Of A Photograph. You Can Talk About The Afterlife Of A Photograph, And In The End I Talk About That, With The Richard Prince Picture. But Mainly, What I Dedicated The Book To Being About Was How Photographs Begin Their Life, And Where They Begin It. And They Begin It With The Photographer's Imagination And Instinct And Experience.

One Of The Things That I Most Believe In Is The Compose And Wait Philosophy Of Photography. It’s A Very Satisfying, Almost Spiritual Way To Photograph. Life Isn't’ Knocking You Around, Life Isn't Controlling You. You Have Picked Your Place, You’ve Picked Your Scene, You’ve Picked Your Light, You’ve Done All The Decision Making And You Are Waiting For The Moment To Come To You.

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.

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?