I first discovered Robert Frank from reading a magazine cover story on him. I don't remember the exact date, but I do remember that Eugene Richards made the cover portrait. Anyway, I bought The Americans immediately. It's no exaggeration to say that his book made me drop everything I was doing (applying to medical school) and decide to devote myself entirely to photography. Until then, I was making photographs often, but privately. I hadn't attended art school, knew no working artists and never considered the value that sharing photographs - my private obsession - might have on others. Frank’s photographs stopped me dead in my tracks.

I love so much about those photographs - his criticism and point of view were relentless, yet he described the world he encountered as it was (and all that it was not). The pictures contained mystery and undeniable fact. They were not polite - and this thrilled me.