I've returned to being an amateur without any ties or strings attached which gives me a freedom I never had before.

In '71 or '72 I returned to New Orleans and stayed there. I started cooking Louisiana food. Of all the things I had cooked it was the best-and it was my heritage.

When I first left Iran at the age of 13 Iran had become such a shining star - it was the point to which all my desires and dreams returned.

I was a sickly baby and after two sets of adoptive parents took me home they returned me to the orphanage because of a serious respiratory infection. But as they say the third time's a charm because my mom and dad adopted me and took me into their home where I was raised in a family full of love.

Every parent is at some time the father of the unreturned prodigal with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope.

I just yesterday returned from a trip where I photographed a woman with two children whom I photographed first when she was the age of the older of the two children.