What I'm exploring right now is the subject of my own mortality. It's an area that I'm curious about, and I'm researching it to see if there's a photographic essay in it for me. If images don't start to come, I'll go to something else.

I became hooked on the idea of being able to shoot an image and process it myself, and end up with a product.

Other times, you're doing some piece of work and suddenly you get feedback that tells you that you have touched something that is very alive in the cosmos.

I certainly don't live in a kosher home although I was raised in a kosher environment.

That's the most difficult issue for me... to find a subject that holds my interest long enough that I'm prepared to go to work and spend the time and energy to shoot the subject.

Some words having to do with the death of the people in the World Trade Center attack had been added, and when I got to it, I had this overwhelmingly emotional experience. I struggled to get through the words; tears were streaming down my cheeks.

But if you're talking about fine art work, then I think you have to ask yourself some pretty deep questions about why it is you want to take pictures and what it is you want to say.

My memory of those places is better than my pictures. That's why I get much more satisfaction out of shooting thematic work that has to do with an idea that I'm searching for, or searching to express.

I deal with this spiritual issue every day - either shooting or processing or sorting or discussing or having conversations - I'm in constant contact with it.

Which is probably the reason why I work exclusively in black and white... to highlight that contrast.

This time, there have been a lot of interesting discussion about the subject matter and I've had a good time talking about it. And in some of the cases, I'm not just signing books; I'm showing slides and talking about the work.

The miracle is this: the more we share the more we have.

My dream concept is that I have a camera and I am trying to photograph what is essentially invisible. And every once in a while I get a glimpse of her and I grab that picture.

I think it's my adventure, my trip, my journey, and I guess my attitude is, let the chips fall where they may.

That's true, because I'm a photographer now.

I became involved in photography when I was about thirteen years old.

I've been working with photography for many years.

You know, for a long time I have been of the opinion that artists don't necessarily know what they're doing. You don't necessarily know what kind of universal concept you're tapping into.

I also do my own processing, so it means a big commitment in lab time.

I'm attracted to images that come from a personal exploration of a subject matter. When they have a personal stamp to them, then I think it becomes identifiable.

Years ago - in the 70s, for about a decade - I carried a camera every place I went. And I shot a lot of pictures that were still life and landscape, using available light.

A neighborhood friend showed me how it was possible to go to a camera shop and pick up chemicals for pennies... literally... and develop your own film and make prints.

That is the exploration that awaits you! Not mapping stars and studying nebula, but charting the unknown possibilities of existence.

For me it's all about personal vision; is there something about a subject that uniquely speaks to me.

What I'm exploring right now is the subject of my own mortality. It's an area that I'm curious about, and I'm researching it to see if there's a photographic essay in it for me. If images don't start to come, I'll go to something else.

I'm touched by the idea that when we do things that are useful and helpful - collecting these shards of spirituality - that we may be helping to bring about a healing.

You proceed from a false assumption: I have no ego to bruise.

Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.

Most of my images have been done in-studio, under very controlled lighting conditions. There have been a few that have been shot in nature, but even then they were shot almost exclusively at night, and again, under controlled lighting conditions.

I am not Spock.

My wife and I are affiliated with a temple here in Los Angeles. We feel very close to the congregation and to the rabbi, who happens to be my wife's cousin and who I admire greatly. I talk to him regularly but I consider myself more spiritual than religious.

The book tour has been really interesting and very gratifying. I have not book toured before. I've never had quite as much pleasure, as much satisfaction.

Boston was a great city to grow up in, and it probably still is. We were surrounded by two very important elements: academia and the arts. I was surrounded by theater, music, dance, museums. And I learned how to sail on the Charles River. So I had a great childhood in Boston. It was wonderful.

For a period of time, I carried cameras with me wherever I went, and then I realized that my interest in photography was turning toward the conceptual. So I wasn't carrying around cameras shooting stuff, I was developing concepts about what I wanted to shoot. And then I'd get the camera angle and do the job.

I think about myself as like an ocean liner that's been going full speed for a long distance, and the captain pulls the throttle back all the way to 'stop,' but the ship doesn't stop immediately, does it? It has its own momentum and it keeps on going, and I'm very flattered that people are still finding me useful.

I use a computer. I don't know if that qualifies me as a techie, but I'm pretty good on the computer.

My folks came to U.S. as immigrants, aliens, and became citizens. I was born in Boston, a citizen, went to Hollywood and became an alien.

Spock is definitely one of my best friends. When I put on those ears, it's not like just another day. When I become Spock, that day becomes something special.

Boston was a great city to grow up in and it probably still is. We were surrounded by two very important elements academia and the arts.

That is the exploration that awaits you Not mapping stars and studying nebula but charting the unknown possibilities of existence.

The miracle is this - the more we share, the more we have.

Yesterday in this country we had people die of hunger and malnutrition. In some parts of this country, the infant mortality rate rivals that of sub-Saharan Africa. We have a public education system that ranks below that of almost any other Western nation.

The U.S. routinely ranks lower than other countries in health outcomes such as infant mortality.

The mortality of all inanimate things is terrible to me, but that of books most of all.

Mental agitations and eating cares are more injurious to health, and destructive of life, than is commonly imagined, and could their effects be collected, would make no inconsiderable figure in the bills of mortality.

God has put within our lives meanings and possibilities that quite outrun the limits of mortality.

In reality, we are all travelers - even explorers of mortality.

I am now faced with mortality. Definitely not the most generous move.

To take a photograph is to participate in another person's mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt.