Man Ray (Emanuel Radnitsky)
[Artist, b. 1890, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, d. 1976, Paris.]
Cut out the eye from a photograph of one who has been loved but is seen no more.Attach the eye to the pendulum of a metronome and regulate the weight to suit the tempo desired.
Keep going to the limit of endurance.
With a hammer well-aimed, try to destroy the whole at a single blow.
(1932, describing “Object To Be Destroyed,” made using a metronome and the photographed eye of artist, lover and collaborator Lee Miller who left him.)
Lillian Bassman
[Photographer and painter, b. 1917, Brooklyn, New York, d. 2012, New York.]
It was sexually a very different thing when [the models] worked with men. They felt a charge... I caught them when they were relaxed, natural, and I spent a lot of time talking to them about their husbands, their lovers, their babies. Barbara Kruger
[Artist, b. 1945, Newark, New Jersey, lives in New York.]
I see my work as a series of attempts to ruin certain representations and to welcome a female spectator into the audience of men. If this work is considered “incorrect,” all the better, for my attempts aim to undermine that singular pontificating male voice-over which “correctly” instructs our pleasures and histories or lack of them. Ellen von Unwerth
[Photographer, b. 1954, Frankfurt, Germany, lives in New York.]
I think that the obsession with technique is a male thing. Boy’s toys. They love playing... I would rather search for a new model or location. Rankin (John Rankin Waddell)
[Photographer, b. 1966, Glasgow, Scotland, lives in London.]
When you look at pornography, the women become objects, whereas what I’m trying to do is make the person in the photograph as important as their body. And obviously, I like tits and arse, because I just do. I like the sex of taking photographs. Charles Bukowski
[Writer, b. 1920, Andernach, Germany, d. 1994, San Pedro, California.]
I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only writes to, keeps little photographs of. Juergen Teller
[Photographer, b. 1964, Erlangen, Germany, lives in London.]
When you’re a well-known fashion photographer, modeling agencies call constantly. They’ll say, “This great girl is in town for three days. She’s excellent, she’s exciting. You’ve got to see her...” So I decided to really have a look at them. I opened up my studio and said, “Send anyone...” And I became quite addicted to the whole thing. I was curious to see how many girls would come. I couldn’t believe that there really were so many around. Diane Keaton
[Actress and photography collector, b. 1946, Los Angeles, lives in Los Angeles.]
[Women photographers] provide an inspiring reminder to all women that the choice to see, or be seen, is ours. We live in a culture in which this decision is undermined by the notion that the single most valuable contribution a woman can make is to be visually attractive. Women photographers make a strong case for seeing and an even stronger case for recording what you see.