I never work with a screen. Other photographers have this black thing around, and they go back and look at it. I'd rather spend the time with the subject, photographing or discussing or talking, than staring at this thing. I'd rather look at what's going on.
On the personal side, I was rock climbing and taking pictures with my friends. We took all sorts of portrait and action pictures, and I was thinking at the time that these are inherently difficult to focus correctly.
From the beginning, the camera and I were great friends. It loves me, and I love it.
I don't really have a favorite camera. I use a Leica and Canon a lot. It depends, especially professionally, on the requirements. But my carry-around camera is a Leica.
Shigure: "What's in the camera? Huh? Huh? What is it?" Hatori: "Quiet, you hack.
If I knew how to take a good photograph, I'd do it every time.
You become technically proficient whether you want to or not, the more you take pictures.
I've learned to create a palette, a vocabulary of ways to take pictures.
I was just taking pictures to see what they looked like. Just for the fun of it. It wasn't about anything in some cases. Some of them were just about the joy of opening up an aperture and seeing what shows up.
PHOTOGRAPH, n. A picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne.
I shoot with a Canon 5D Mark III.
My first pictures are from 1972, and my first proper camera dates back to 1973. During the first year I used my father's camera. It had a flash on it, which I don't like, but I didn't know anything about photography back then, so it was just what I did.
There are some elements of digital photography that I don't really like, such as the fact that you see the results immediately.
A person cannot learn to be a photographer. He can only cultivate what he already has. I try to make people aware that they have something very precious to cultivate.
I don't really know how to work a camera.
I'm not an expert when it comes to technology, but what changed things for me was autofocus. I used to have to throw away half my pictures because it was so difficult to get the focus right.
I'm a very, very basic photographer. The main strength of my pictures, I guess, is the mood and feel I get out of the people that I meet. But technically I don't think I'm very advanced. That never interested me.
Basically, with a regular camera, you have to take time or allow the camera to focus before you take the shot.
When I got on my first set, I watched what the cinematographer was doing, and at that level in film school, the cinematographer has the most control. They're the one looking through the viewfinder, carrying the camera, framing the shots.
The dynamic range of a digital camera is not that much greater than film, particularly if you push the ASA a little bit.
I started playing around with GoPros on my own to get some cool footage. But it's actually become a big training tool for my team and me.
The problem for me is that I've never actually studied photography, so it's quite a steep learning curve. Cameras these days do so much for you automatically but I still think there's a point where you should actually know the technical side.
For low light, all the light rays participate. We're using all the light coming through a large aperture to make a picture with a large depth of field - totally impossible with a conventional camera.
People think that it is important to learn by assisting the great photographers. I say that is a big mistake. Be happy; just learn from any little guy. Learn how to use the camera - you don't need anything else. You can't be taught the real skill anyway.
When I buy a Nikon camera, I have no tolerance for the instructions. I'm ready to make some mistakes using it and get some bad pictures back until I've figured it out for myself.
