Richard Prince's Most Famous Photograph Was Made

My Father Taught Me Photography. It Was His Hobby, And We Had A Small Darkroom In The Fruit Cellar Of Our Basement. It Was The Kind Of Makeshift Darkroom That Was Only Dark At Night.

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.

My Parents, Grandmother And Brother Were Teachers. My Mother Taught Latin And French And Was The School Librarian. My Father Taught Geography And A Popular Class Called Family Living, The Precursor To Sociology, Which He Eventually Taught. My Grandmother Was A Beloved One-room School Teacher At Knob School, Near Sonora In Larue County, Ky.

For Spiritual Companions I Have Had The Many Artists Who Have Relied On Nature To Help Shape Their Imagination. And Their Most Elaborate Equipment Was A Deep Reverence For The World Through Which They Passed. Photographers Share Something With These Artists. We Seek Only To See And To Describe With Our Own Voices, And, Though We Are Seldom Heard As Soloists, We Cannot Photograph The World In Any Other Way.

I Can't Speak For Other Photographers, But The Photographers Who Went Forward Strongly When The So-called "official" Part Of Their Career Ended, To Me, Were Those Who Had Taught. Teaching Enriches And Enlivens One's Work.