Allen Ginsberg
[Poet and writer, b. 1926, Newark, New Jersey, d. 1997, New York.]
[My photographs were] meant more for an audience in heaven than one here on earth—and that’s why they’re charming.
In portraiture, you have the fleeting moment to capture the image as it passes and before it dissolves. And in a way, that’s special for photography. It captures the shadow of a moment, so to speak.
I do my sketching and observing with the camera.
What would I want to know if I were looking at a photograph of Rimbaud and Verlaine together? What were they doing that day? What had they been talking about? What were they occupied with? Where was it?
(On writing captions)
