Garry Winogrand
[Photographer, b. 1928, New York, d. 1984, Tijuana, Mexico.]
Photography is Perception (seeing) and Description (operating the camera to make a record) of the seeing.
A photo is a literary narrative, ya know what I mean... but it’s not specific.
I don’t have to have any storytelling responsibility to what I’m photographing. I have a responsibility to describe well...
... what if I said that every photograph I made was set up? From the photograph, you can’t prove otherwise. You don’t know anything from the photograph about how it was made, really. But every photograph could be set up. If one could imagine it, one could set it up. The whole discussion is a way of not talking about photographs.
I don’t know if all the women in the photographs are beautiful, but I do know the women are beautiful in the photographs.
I start shooting. I look. I don’t have to know the language, I don’t have to know where to get a good cup of coffee.
