Larry Fink’s Take on the Dignity of Photography

In our latest First Take interview, TIME spoke with photographer Larry Fink to learn about his photography process.

“When I was a kid and particularly socially conscious, what I looked for was to find the dignity of man and feel the soul of the individual within,” he tells TIME. “I delegate all things to chance, that I work slowly but very quickly at the same time.”

Fink received the 2015 ICP Infinity Award for Lifetime Fine Art Photography and has also been awarded two John Simon Guggenheim Fellowships and two National Endowment for the Arts, Individual Photography Fellowships. He has also taught for over fifty-two years, at prestigious institutions ranging from Yale to Bard College.

Larry Fink is a photographer known for his classic black-and-white images capturing social events and has authored several books on photography.

First Take is an ongoing video series curated by TIME’s photography editors. See the previous videos here.