My rental car, Cape St. Mary's, Newfoundland, 1970

When I left Geographic at the end of 1967 Bob Gilka, the Director of Photography, said "Graduate from college, work for a good newspaper, then come back and see us." By 1970 I'd done that and was back.

Gilka sent me to Newfoundland. It's hard now to think of that time and place with anything other than unblemished affection - until I look at the film. It reveals that I made redundant rookie mistakes and hit sustained lows as a fieldman and photographer I've never hit since.

But mixed in were photographs that have lasted, including color work that, for the first time, is both literal and suggestive. That work became the foundation for the years of photography that were to follow.