Aboriginal Australia Is A Tough

Editorial Photography Has To Be Energetic And Visually Competitive.

I Think Of Myself As A Writer Who Photographs. Images, For Me, Can Be Considered Poems, Short Stories Or Essays. And I've Always Thought The Best Place For My Photographs Was Inside Books Of My Own Creation.

I Was Asked By A Student What My Most Significant Accomplishment Was At National Geographic, After Thirty Years, And I Said That My Career Came To An Appropriate Close, And I Still Loved Photography. Not Everybody Who Spends Their Career At Anything Ends Up Fascinated And Involved With It.

In The Last Workshop I Taught, A Woman Flew In From Thailand. She's A Medical Doctor In Bangkok. I Asked Her In Her One-on-one Session Where She Wanted Photography To Be In Her Life.did She Want A Second Career? Was It About Earning Money? Or Was It Art? And She Said "none Of Those. I Want Photography To Be Serious In My Life." It Would Be Like Someone Wanting Music, Like Piano Playing, To Be A Richer, Deeper, And Maybe Even Harder Experience.

Yes, There Are Billions More Photographers, And Billions More Photographs Every Day, But Who's Building Up A Point Of View? Who's Photographing With Intention, And Whose Body Of Work Will Sustain Itself And Survive?