Garry Winogrand
[Photographer, b. 1928, New York, d. 1984, Tijuana, Mexico.]
I think that there isn’t a photograph in the world that has any narrative ability... They do not tell stories—they show you what something looks like. To a camera.
The photograph isn’t what was photographed. It’s something else. It’s a new fact.
Every photograph is a battle of form versus content. The good ones are on the border of failure.
You see something happening and you bang away at it. Either you get what you saw or you get something else—and whichever is better you print.
Photography is about finding out what can happen in the frame. When you put four edges around some facts, you change those facts.
I really try to divorce myself from any thought of possible use of [my photographs]... Certainly while I’m working, I want them to be as useless as possible.
There are no photographs while I’m reloading.
(On being asked how he felt about missing photographs while he reloaded his camera with film.)
Hopefully the picture will be more interesting than what I photograph.
