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My father was in the ad business, and he wanted to be a painter.

Actually, when I first started dabbling in photography, I was still working for my parents as a salesman.

My father was a photographer at the National Bureau of Standards. A self-educated man, he never finished high school, but in his career at the National Bureau of Standards, he made many useful inventions and eventually became chief of the Photographic Technology Section.

Growing up, I didn't give my grandfather's photography a second thought. I wasn't involved in his work, except that I helped my dad print his negatives.

I began photographing in 1946. Before that, I was a painter and drawer, with my mother and father's support. They were a bit pissed when I went into photography. They thought photographers were guys who took pictures at weddings.

My mother had taken me to photographer Paul Hesse, who used some of my pictures on magazine covers.

My dad had been an ardent amateur photographer, and he taught me to compose a photograph from the back to the front, and then populate the picture.

My father, an architectural photographer, was an incurable tinkerer, maker and mender.