George Davison
[Photographer, b. 1854, Lowestoft, England, d. 1930, Antibes, France.]
...given a subject with really strong poetic possibilities in it, sharpness and detail will go a long way to render it commonplace.
(1889) 
Annie Leibovitz
[Photographer, b. 1949, Westbury, Connecticut, lives in New York.]
I don’t try to overintellectualize my concepts of people. In fact, the ideas I have, if you talk about them, they seem extremely corny and it’s only in their execution that people can enjoy them... It’s something I’ve learned to trust: The stupider it is, the better it looks.
Christian Boltanski
[Artist, b. 1944, Paris, lives in Paris.]
I try to make my art viewed as if it were life, so that people can speak about my art as if it were something they know. This is why I use photos, since everyone can relate to them, and also why I talk about issues like death, which is important to everyone.
Edward Weston
[Photographer, b. 1886, Highland Park, Illinois, d. 1958, Wildcat Hill, California.]
With over twenty years experience, I never try to plan in advance. Though I may from experience know about what I can do with a certain subject... I start out with my mind as free from an image as the silver film on which I am to record, and I hope as sensitive. Then indeed putting one’s head under the focusing cloth is a thrill... one becomes a discoverer, seeing a new world through the lens.
Ralph Eugene Meatyard
[Photographer, b. 1925, Normal, Illinois, d. 1972, Lexington, Kentucky.]
I found out that I could not choose a subject, throw it out of focus, and then have a good picture. I found that I had to learn to see No-focus from the beginning.
George Davison
[Photographer, b. 1854, Lowestoft, England, d. 1930, Antibes, France.]
It need hardly be said that all beginners and many old stagers go straight for the smallest stop they dare use in order to make sure getting all sharp. If the object is what we may call scientific, well and good, but if there be anything worthy of artistic representation in the picture selected, such a procedure will certainly tend to lose, suppress, or distract attention from it.
(1889)
Larry Fink
[Photographer, b. 1941, Brooklyn, New York, lives in Martins Creek, Pennsylvania.]
I’m always aware of what’s holding my interest while I’m shooting, but I’m not analyzing my desires to the point of cooling things down—just to the point of understanding impulses as they come.
Lars Tunbjörk
[Photographer, b. 1956, Borås, Sweden, d. 2015, Stockholm.]
I want to be a stranger. I want to look at [things] a little bit from a distance and with a critical eye, concentrating on this mad theater...
