You've Always Been Free. You've Always Been

Why Do Most Great Pictures Look Uncontrived? Why Do Photographers Bother With The Deception, Especially Since It So Often Requires The Hardest Work Of All? The Answer Is, I Think, That The Deception Is Necessary If The Goal Of Art Is To Be Reached: Only Pictures That Look As If They Had Been Easily Made Can Convincingly Suggest That Beauty Is Commonplace.

I Began Making Pictures Because I Wanted To Record What Supports Hope: The Untranslatable Mystery And Beauty Of The World. Along The Way, However, The Camera Also Caught Evidence Against Hope, And I Eventually Concluded That This, Too, Belonged In Pictures If They Were To Be Truthful And Thus Useful.

Part Of The Reason That These Attempts At Explanation Fail, I Think, Is That Photographers, Like All Artists, Choose Their Medium Because It Allows Them The Most Fully Truthful Expression Of Their Vision... As Robert Frost Told A Person Who Asked Him What One Of His Poems Meant, 'you Want Me To Say It Worse?'

Art Depends On There Being Affection In Its Creator's Life And An Artist Must Find Ways, Like Everyone Else, To Nourish It. A Photographer Down On His Or Her Knees Picturing A Dog Has Found Pleasure Enough To Make Many Things Possible.

I Thought I Was Taking Pictures Of Things That I Hated. But There Was Something About These Pictures. They Were Unexpectedly, Disconcertingly Glorious.