Edward Steichen
[Photographer and curator, b. 1879, Luxembourg, Germany, d. 1973, West Redding, Connecticut.]
A photograph is worth a thousand words, provided it is accompanied by only ten words.
Duane Michals
[Photographer, b. 1932, McKeesport, Pennsylvania, lives in New York.]
I arrived at writing [on photographs] from a frustration with the medium. I was frustrated by the silence of the still photograph.
Douglas Coupland
[Writer, b. 1961, Baden-Söllingen, Germany, lives in Vancouver, Canada.]
I tried to think of a witty play on “Every picture tells a thousand words,” but then the whole word/picture thing collapsed on me.
Lewis Hine
[Photographer, writer, and reformer, b. 1874, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, d. 1940, New York.]
If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug a camera.
John Baldessari
[Artist, b. 1931, National City, California, lives in Venice, California.]
I tend to think of words as substitutes for images. I can never seem to figure out what one does that the other doesn’t do.
Don DeLillo
[Writer, b. 1936, New York, lives in New York.]
I am not an opponent of the proliferation of pictures in our culture, I am just trying to understand its impact. I like photography, I like to look at photographs and paintings. However, the difference between the world of pictures and the world of printed matter is extraordinary and hard to define. A picture is like the masses: a multitude of impressions. A book on the other hand, with its linear advance of words and characters seems to be connected to individual identity.
Gilles Peress
[Photographer, b. 1946, Neuilly, France, lives in New York.]
I don’t trust words. I trust pictures.
Edward Weston
[Photographer, b. 1886, Highland Park, Illinois, d. 1958, Wildcat Hill, California.]
Art is an interpreter of the inexpressible, and therefore it seems a folly to try to convey its meaning afresh by means of words.
