Franz Kafka
[Writer, b. 1883, Prague, d. 1924, Prague.]
When I look at your little photo, I am always astonished by the force which ties us together. Behind all there is to contemplate, behind the cherished face... act forces which are so near and dear and so indispensable to me, all of it is a real mystery in which the tiny creatures that we are must collapse in total submission.
Robert Doisneau
[Photographer, b. 1912, Gentilly, Val-de-Marne, France, d. 1994, Montrouge, France.]
You know, they always say that the photographer is “a hunter of images.” That is a flattering image, the idea of a hunter, it’s virile, acquired power. Actually though, it isn’t that. We are really fishermen with hooks and lines.
Jo Spence
[Artist, photographer, and writer, b. 1934, London, d. 1992, London.]
I would say all my work has been concerned to subvert dominant images of women; however, the real problem for me has been how to represent the class connotations of this, which is why I am entering the spheres of debates around power.
Philippe Halsman
[Photographer, b. 1906, Riga, Latvia, d. 1979, New York.]
Of all the beautiful women I have photographed, I recall Marilyn Monroe most vividly. Her great talent was an ability to convey her “availability.” I remember there were three men in the room… Each of us had the thought that if the others would only leave the room that something would happen between Marilyn and himself.
Slim Aarons
[Photographer, b. 1916, New York, d. 2006, Montrose, New York.]
When you photograph a lot of women, you get to know things.
Robert Doisneau
[Photographer, b. 1912, Gentilly, Val-de-Marne, France, d. 1994, Montrouge, France.]
A memory from my youth comes back to me. You go into the woods on a bike, with a girl. There is the smell of heather, you can hear the wind in the fir trees, you don't dare tell her about your love, but you feel happy, as if you were floating above the ground. Then you look at the clouds beyond the trees and they are fleeting. And you know that within an hour you’ll have to go home, that tomorrow will be a working day. You wish you could stop that moment forever, but you can’t, it is bound to end. So you take a photo, as if to challenge time.
Bert Stern
[Photographer, b. 1929, Brooklyn, New York, d. 2013, New York.]
I was preparing for Marilyn’s arrival like a lover, and yet I was here to take photographs. Not to take her in my arms, but to turn her into tones, and planes, and shapes, and ultimately into an image for the printed page.
(On photographing the actress six weeks before her death.)
Lucy Lippard
[Critic and writer, b. 1936, New York, lives in Galisteo, New Mexico.]
I must admit to a personal lack of sympathy with women who have themselves photographed in black stockings, garter belts and boots, with bare breasts, bananas, and coy, come-hither glances.... A woman using her own face and body has a right to do what she will with them, but it is a subtle abyss that separates men’s use of women for sexual titillation from women’s use of women to expose that insult.
