"“The visual, retrospective, and chronological order of a body of work inevitably becomes the author’s biography. For the first time, and thanks to the magic of the book, I encounter images never seen before, placed side by side—of people who, at a moment in their lives, stood before my camera to celebrate the ceremony of the portrait. It is, therefore, a book open to memory. I do not remember, however, the things that were said or thought at that moment, because photographers deal with forms that are about to vanish, and once they are gone, there is no artifice on earth that can bring them back. Photography fixes that moment forever. Of all the modalities of photography, the most enduring is the portrait; and the book, the most exquisite of forms of communication. This work contains reproductions of the highest fidelity to the original works of art, insofar as the term art can be applied to photography.”"