War is a bankruptcy of policy
I have to be reminded, “’It’s your son’s birthday party. Bring a camera. ’ And then, when I’m there, ‘Take a picture,’ because it doesn’t occur to me to use it as this memorializing thing.
I realize that as I get more experience as I get older, my perception changes and that feeds the photograph.
I meet young artists and it becomes clear that with some the main motivation is getting a show in Chelsea. It strikes me that this is very different to the way it was for me, which was that I wanted to understand photography and the world and myself.
I'm not interested in doing the same kind of picture over and over again. I pose problems for myself. Sometimes they are aesthetic problems and sometimes they are logistical problems.
I don't know how much a photograph can add to a biography, the way a film or writing or narrative medium could. Because it's a frozen image.
If I only try to solve the problems I set for myself, then I'm limited by what I can conceive of. I can't solve a problem I can't conceive. But if someone else gives me a visual problem, it can be out of the whole realm of my normal practice.
Any civilized administration, however organized, prefers its own good to that of the people.
I have to learn that the aim in life is God's, not mine.
You can have your secret as long as I have your heart[. ]
The fact that I was African American was never addressed, and that allowed me to just be a student, like anyone else. I was not aware of how rare it was to be an African American, how rare it was to have four years of training under my belt, and how, even though I could imitate people and fake it, unprepared I was to become a professional.