Imogen Cunningham
[Photographer, b. 1883, Portland, d. 1976, San Francisco.]
The imaginative photographer is always dreaming and trying to record his dream.
I never divide photographers into creative and uncreative, I just call them photographers. Who is creative? How do you know who is creative or not?
I was invited to photograph Hollywood. They asked me what I would like to photograph. I said, Ugly men.
The formula for doing a good job in photography is to think like a poet.
So many people dislike themselves so thoroughly that they never see any reproduction of themselves that suits. None of us is born with the right face. It’s a tough job being a portrait photographer.
The imaginative photographer is always dreaming and trying to record his dream.
You know, a documentary is only interesting once in a while. If you look at a whole book of Dorothea [Lange]’s where she has row after row of people bending over and digging out carrots—that can be very tedious. And so it’s only once in a while that something happens that is worth doing.
I just believe in working. I’m not one of those romantic explainers of my own individual point of view.
