I make photographs and still make photographs of the natural environment. It's a love because that was part of my life before I was involved in photography.

In 1979, I received a phone call from Ansel Adams asking me if I would be willing to consider coming to work for him. I was teaching photography in Southern California at that point.

So when I became interested in photography and further being inspired by the work that I saw of Ansel and others, it was a natural extension to go back to these places that I knew as a kid and explore them with my camera.

I think the greatest photographers are the amateur photographers who do it because they love it. Arnold Newman is a good example; he is a consummate professional, but he's also an 'amateur' in the pure sense of the word.

And then as I frequently do, some times I'll peek out from underneath the focusing cloth and just look around the edges of the frame that I'm not seeing, see if there's something that should be adjusted in terms of changing the camera position.

The reason I do workshops is so I can learn, and I am fortunate that I've probably gained more from the whole experience of teaching than any one participant has. It is all about asking.

There is a considerable amount of manipulation in the printmaking from the straight photograph to the finished print. If I do my job correctly that shouldn't be visible at all, it should be transparent.

I've never seen a surface that I think is more seductive in image making.

I remember being shocked when I came out from under the focusing cloth after a minute or two being submerged within that, at the startling green color of those ferns.

I've found even after nearly 30 years of doing this, there are all kinds of new surprises that rear their heads at various times and I truly believe that 51% of the images, success takes place in the darkroom.

The first day at the power plant I found myself photographing some steam vents on the roof of the structure. And I remember consciously thinking that they were just like trees but they were metal.

And the camera position, the organization, looking for repeating forms, shapes, trying to set up a visual rhythm seemed to come very natural. All of a sudden I was in a forest of aluminum and steel rather than a forest that we might think of in a traditional sense.

And as part of my activity there, he had indicated he wanted me to work with him on that and conduct the various technical tests. And so a few months later I moved from Southern California up to the Monterey Peninsula where I still live today.

In my mind I needed a symbol of today's technology, and I realized that what I wanted to photograph was the Space Shuttle. And so that's where Places of Power came into being.

We all start in this medium because of the magic and the challenge is to keep it going.

It was amazing to watch him in the darkroom at an advanced age, still get excited when the results were pleasing. He still struggled like we all do in the darkroom and he struggled behind the camera, and when he had a success he was beaming.

It had rained on some vivid green ferns in Maine and it was quite beautiful. I was moving the camera slightly and studying the ground glass. Looking at those 20 square inches, trying to find out just what were the right elements to include.

Today my passion is still black and white. Today if I have an array of cameras in front of me the one I would reach for that I would feel most comfortable with would be a 4 X 5 View camera. I was once working in a sort of soft light situation.

Having photographed the landscape for a number of years and specifically working with trees and in the forest I found, without consciously thinking about it, that it was a great learning experience for me in terms of organizing elements.

For me the printing process is part of the magic of photography. It's that magic that can be exciting, disappointing, rewarding and frustrating all in the same few moments in the darkroom.

I support any procedure that allows photographers to express themselves, whether that involves color, black and white, platinum, palladium and digital technology.

I really don't have any secrets. I've never met a photographer whose work I respected that had a secret because the secret lies within each and every one of us.

When I teach and meet a class for the first time, you realize that there are people there that have exceptional abilities or have the potential to do exceptional things and you never know who those people are. My job is to provide the best information I can.

I took a workshop from him a few months after that. That experience changed my whole approach to photography. At that workshop in Yosemite in 1973 I decided I wanted to try and see if I could pursue this for myself, and I'm still trying.

And friends of mine that had photography class in high school would develop the film and make prints and I'd take them back to the track and give 'em away or try and sell them. Much to my parents' dismay, I majored in photography in college.

When the object that is produced, the photographic image has the ability to make tears come to your eyes; to inspire you to the point where you have to catch your breath, then nothing else matters.

So to me it's very similar in terms of trying to distill within the image, those elements that are gonna form, hopefully, a compelling visual statement.

He was a very generous soul and was exceptionally dedicated to the medium of photography.

Whatever it takes to get the image to reach that level is what that photographer needs to do. And for me, I just have such a love of the tactile and sensuous quality of a black and white silver gelatin print.

When I'm about ready to press the cable release on the View camera, I've tried to anticipate some of the challenges I'm going to encounter in the darkroom.

I remembered seeing it and it was this metallic turbine and I thought it was beautiful. I had never been in a power plant before, but I felt, without being overly dramatic, compelled to make photographs of this for myself.

One of the workshop participants had shown me a single 8 X 10 photograph of a power plant where he actually was the general manager of this power cooperative. It was quite magical to me.

It was an experience that was exceptional. People frequently ask what it was like and it truly was inspiring. Sometimes during his lifetime, people would try and put him on a pedestal and that's not where he wanted to be, but he was really a great individual.

I make photographs and still make photographs of the natural environment. It's a love because that was part of my life before I was involved in photography.

What we've proven is that you can protect the environment, use it wisely and grow the economy and that there is no conflict between the two.

I think the human body is beautiful, and I don't really have a huge problem in dealing with it, but it's the context, the environment and what I feel about it that that makes the difference for me.

Organized Christianity has always represented immortality as a sort of common heritage; but I never could see why spiritual life should not be conditioned on the same terms as all life, i. e., correspondence with environment.

If you're going to be at a job environment, you should love it. You shouldn't do it just for money. You should do it because you love it. And the money comes naturally.

When on the set of a film, you have to play natural for entire scenes in a very unnatural environment. You have to express emotions and interact with other actors and also use your voice.

An organization's reason for being, like that of any organism, is to help the parts that are in relationship to each other, to be able to deal with change in the environment.

The only way to save a rhinoceros is to save the environment in which it lives, because there's a mutual dependency between it and millions of other species of both animals and plants.

In fact, because of their connection to the land, farmers do more to protect and preserve our environment than almost anyone else. They are some of the best environmentalists around.

We don't have to sacrifice a strong economy for a healthy environment.

You get elected, often, if you're a woman, on the strength of the women's vote; then you get into office, and you have to adapt to an overwhelmingly male environment.

But the idea of a man making his living by writing seemed, in that hardy environment, so fantastic that even today I am sometimes myself assailed by a feeling of unreality.

Be careful the environment you choose for it will shape you; be careful the friends you choose for you will become like them.

Well, you know I have an office, my film offices. So I know that syndrome. I fancy offices, so there must be something wrong with me. Even the window cleaner intrigues me. It's a very sexy environment.

Small businesses are the number one job creators in America. Therefore, it is important that the federal government creates an environment that helps them succeed, not one that sets them up to fail.

History in its broadest aspect is a record of man's migrations from one environment to another.