Brassaï (Gyula Halász)
[Photographer, b. 1889, Brassó, Transylvania, Hungary (now Romania), d. 1984, Eze, Alpes-Maritimes, France.]
Now that a perfect whole is slowly emerging from I develop day after day (light and shadow, front stairs and back stairs, the 500-franc banquet and the cesspit), I have to admit that I must truly be what an American writer, Henry Miller, called me: “the eye of Paris.” You see, even if it took a lot of struggle, I have wrested from fate the opportunity to give my talent free reign after all, although success and popularity come at a price: a permanent address, responsibility, social status, are precisely the bugaboos I have abhorred all my life.
O. Winston Link
[Photographer, b. 1914, Brooklyn, New York, d. 2001, South Salem, New York.]
Winston, I don’t know what I want, but I want you to go out and get it. When I see it, I’ll know if it’s what I thought I wanted.
(Quoting a photography client.)
Tina Modotti
[Photographer and political activist, b. 1896, Undine, Italy, d. 1942, Mexico City.]
... I just feel impotent—I don’t know which way to start or turn. You know what they say about a prophet in one’s own country—well—in a way it works for me too: you see—this might be called my home town—well of all the old friends and acquaintances not one takes me seriously as a photographer—not
one has asked me to show my work...
(On returning to San Francisco)
Susan Sontag
[Writer, theorist, and critic, b. 1933, New York, d. 2004, New York.]
The final reason for the need to photograph everything lies in the very logic of consumption itself. To consume means to burn, to use up—and therefore, to need to be replenished. As we make images and consume them, we need still more images; and still more. But images are not a treasure for which the world must be ransacked; they are precisely what is at hand wherever the camera falls. The possession of a camera can inspire something akin to lust.
Robert Frank
[Photographer and filmmaker, b. 1924, Zürich, Switzerland, lives in Mabou, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada, and New York.]
Mass production of uninspired photojournalism and photography without thought becomes anonymous merchandise. The air becomes infected with the ‘smell’ of photography. If the photographer wants to be an artist, his thoughts cannot be developed overnight at the corner drugstore.
Frederick Douglass
[Writer, orator, activist, b. 1818, Talbot County, Maryland, d. 1895, Washington, D.C..]
Handsome or homely, manly or mean, if an author’s face can possibly be other than fine looking the picture must be in the book, or the book be considered incomplete.
(1861, in a lecture called “Pictures and Progress”)
Paul Strand
[Photographer, b. 1890, New York, d. 1976, Oregeval, France.]
[An exhibitions is] just a mean and meaningless affair; mean in that they exploit the artists to entertain the public free of charge—meaningless in that they seldom establish any standards.... I can never get used to the idea that... people who claim to enjoy a thing never support the individual who makes what gives them pleasure.
Graham Nash
[Musician, photographer, and collector, b. 1942, Blackpool, Lancashire, England, lives in Encino, California.]
I don’t understand why anyone would collect my work. Please understand... it’s like writing
Our House. It took me an hour, it was 30 years ago, get over it! But people say, “No, no, it changed my life,” and I don’t understand that. I can’t take that seriously as a producer of what I consider to be art. If they want to collect it, fantastic. If you see what I saw when I took it and it means something to you, then by all means collect it. If I make some money, um, fine.
