I've Photographed Just About Everyone In The

A Photographic Portrait Is A Picture Of Someone Who Knows He's Being Photographed, And What He Does With This Knowledge Is As Much A Part Of The Photograph As What He's Wearing Or How He Looks. He's Implicated In What's Happening, And He Has A Certain Real Power Over The Result.

The Pictures Have A Reality For Me That The People Don't. It Is Through The Photographs That I Know Them.

Snapshots That Have Been Taken Of Me Working Show Something I Was Not Aware Of At All, That Over And Over Again I'm Holding My Own Body Or My Own Hands Exactly Like The Person I'm Photographing. I Never Knew I Did That, And Obviously What I'm Doing Is Trying To Feel, Actually Physically Feel, The Way He Or She Feels At The Moment I'm Photographing Them In Order To Deepen The Sense Of Connection.

I've Worked Out Of A Series Of No's. No To Exquisite Light, No To Apparent Compositions, No To The Seduction Of Poses Or Narrative. And All These No's Force Me To The Yes. I Have A White Background. I Have The Person I'm Interested In And The Thing That Happens Between Us.

When I Was A Boy, My Family Took Great Care With Our Snapshots. We Really Planned Them. We Made Compositions. We Posed In Front Of Expensive Cars, Homes, That Werent Ours. We Borrowed Dogs. Almost Every Family Picture Taken Of Us When I Was Young Had A Different Borrowed Dog In It.