Photographs That Transcend But Do Not Deny

In Almost Every Photograph I Have Ever Made, There Is Something I Would Do To Complete It. I Take That To Be The Spirit Hole Or The Deliberate Mistake That's In A Navajo Rug To Not Be Godlike, But To Be Human.

I Was Known As A 35-mm Photographer With A View-camera Mentality.

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.

The Reason I Don't Want To Say Anything About It Is It Has A Strange Power To Take Over The Conversation. Just Like It's Doing With Us. I Was Asked To Participate In A Documentary About Richard Prince, And Be The Voice Of Someone Who Was Appropriated, And I Declined. The Reason I Did Is I Don't Want It To Be The Subject Of The Discussion Of My Work.

I'm Interested In Smokers Standing On Ledges, And Big Box Stores, The Rise Of The Suburbs, And The Hollowing Out Of Small Towns. Self-storage. Things That Didn't Exist 50 Years Ago. Our Common Culture. What We Have Agreed Is Ok To Live With.