“The use of the term art medium is, to say the least, misleading, for it is the a…” — Edward Steichen

A good daguerreotype was as perfect a kind of photograph as was ever made.

When I first became interested in photography, I thought it was the whole cheese. My idea was to have it recognized as one of the fine arts. Today I don't give a hoot in hell about that. The mission of photography is to explain man to man and each man to himself.

There is only one optimist. He has been here since man has been on this earth, and that is man himself. If we hadn't had such a magnificent optimism to carry us through all these things, we wouldn't be here. We have survived it on our optimism.

The mission of photography is to explain man to man and each to himself. And that is the most complicated thing on earth.