It's more difficult now, to be a Geographic photographer, than it was when I came along. And it wasn't easy at that time.

My best work is often almost unconscious and occurs ahead of my ability to understand it.

It matters little how much equipment we use; it matters much that we be masters of all we do use.

Photography, alone of the arts, seems perfected to serve the desire humans have for a moment - this very moment - to stay.

Essentially what photography is is life lit up.

We know that photographs inform people. We also know that photographs move people. The photograph that does both is the one we want to see and make.

Life rarely presents fully finished photographs. An image evolves, often from a single strand of visual interest - a distant horizon, a moment of light, a held expression.

A mad, keen photographer needs to get out into the world and work and make mistakes.

Photographs that transcend but do not deny their literal situation appeal to me.

For sheer majestic geography and sublime scale, nothing beats Alaska and the Yukon. For culture, Japan. And for all-around affection, Australia.

I wanted life to be episodic. I wanted to be a magazine photographer and I was willing to do what it took to become that.

Anybody can look at you. It's quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see.

Every life matters. Be like Mother Nature and love everyone without judging.

Christians don't tell lies they just go to church and sing them.

There are not fifty ways of fighting, there is only one: to be the conqueror.

No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man.

What I used to play was rhythm guitar before I saw Jack Bruce. I said, That's what I want to do in life. He was definitely the main influence

Only the dead have no troubles.

I took my lyre and said: come now, my heavenly tortoise shell: become a speaking instrument.

No one has taken my heart in their hand. I haven't given it... I have lent myself, rented myself out, but never given myself.

When you work in film, you have to be pretty fluent in explaining your vision, especially when speaking to actors, and I found speaking to actors to be so challenging and intimidating on set.