Thomas Roma
[Photographer, b. 1950, Brooklyn, New York, lives in Brooklyn.]

 Imagine what Masaccio or Leonardo would have done if they had an instrument with which they could point, push a button, and get an image. 
 Straight photography, following the medium, is intoxicating—trying to wrestle it into the form of a poem. 
 The question is not whether a picture is “good,” in some formal, technical sense, but, does it mean what I need it to mean? Writers can edit sentences that may be well-crafted but that don’t express an intended thought. But in photography, there are no revisions: A photograph is in or it’s out, and the photographer must live with the consequences of his or her choices. 
 I approached photography the only way that I knew how to approach anything: as a job. I would get up, photograph all morning, stop and have lunch, and then, photograph all afternoon. I didn’t think that I had to wait for some inspiration.