You know, it’s funny, you either get this, or don’t really at all. You tell people you’re a photographer, and they say, “Oh, what kind of camera do you use?” It’s like asking Eddie Van Halen “What kind of guitar do you play?” or, “Yeah, I heard one of your records, man, you must have a killer guitar.” It’s not the camera, it’s the operator. But, with photography, as with a lot of things, the tools that you choose inform the aesthetic, to an extent. The 35mm looks different than 4×5, so the tools will vary, but the voice needs to be consistent. I started feeling like you get hired for your opinion. Wherever you come back with is your take on that experience.

Rob: And you loved that, you loved being in the action and shooting that style and all that?

Dan: Yep, I loved it. I loved shooting that way, and I still love that form. That was actually a really weird time for photojournalism, too. I always used to criticize the trend that existed then, so much stuff in the ’80s was shot with 300-millimeter lenses. I never shot that way. I didn’t like it. And they would do that insane, burning, I used to call it the “hand of God burning, ” where they’d burn everything down in the print except for like the face, try so hard to show you what to look at I’d go, “What’d you do, put a quarter on that guy’s face while you were making the exposure?”