The Unusual Wins Out Over The Usual.

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.

It's A Little Bit Like Talking About The Life Of Writing. The Life Of Writing May Be About Many Things, But It Always Begins With The Writer. With The Kernel Of An Idea, Or A Character, Or An Idea Or A Theme, Or Even An Outcome. But For Documentary Photographers, Photographs Begin At That Intersection Of The Real World And The Imaginative Inner World.

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.

It Matters Little How Much Equipment We Use; It Matters Much That We Be Masters Of All We Do Use.

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.