Minor White
[Photographer, writer, and theorist, b. 1908, Minneapolis, Minnesota, d. 1976, Cambridge, Massachusetts.]
Dreams and photographs have something in common; those photographs that yield to contemplation at least have a quality about them that tempt one to set associations going.
Robert Frank
[Photographer and filmmaker, b. 1924, Zürich, Switzerland, lives in Mabou, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada, and New York.]
I hate to be photographed. I can’t stand to be pinned in front of a camera. I do that to people. I don’t like it done to me.
Josef Koudelka
[Photographer, b. 1938, Biskovice, Moravia, Czechoslovakia, lives in Paris.]
If I couldn’t shoot lots of photos, I would not be the photographer that I am. Still, the cost of film has often been a problem. At times, to save money, I had to work with remainders of movie-film, and even to buy film that was stolen. But when I have only three rolls of film left in my bag, I panic.
Nikki S. Lee
[Photographer, b. 1970, Kye-Chang, Korea, lives in New York.]
Altogether, I’ve spent nine or ten years learning photography. And I don’t take pictures anymore! I love not having to focus on the technical aspects of things. I don’t like pressing the button or focusing on lighting, but I like photography and looking at pictures. I like the context of photography—I can ready it clearly. I love Roland Barthes and all and I’m actually good at the technical aspect of photography, but after ten years, I’m glad I don’t have to do it anymore.
Ruth Bernhard
[Photographer, b. 1905, Berlin, d. 2006, San Francisco.]
For me, the creation of a photograph is experienced as a heightened emotional response, most akin to poetry and music, each image the culmination of a compelling impulse I cannot deny. Whether working with a human figure or a still life, I am deeply aware of my spiritual connection with it. In my life, as in my work, I am motivated by a great yearning for balance and harmony beyond the realm of human experience, reaching for the essence of oneness with the Universe.
John Sexton
[Photographer, b. 1953, Maywood, California, lives in California.]
To convey in the print the feeling you experienced when you exposed your film—to walk out of the darkroom and say: “This is it, the equivalent of what I saw and felt!” That’s what it’s all about.
Martin Parr
[Photographer, b. 1952, Epson, Surrey, England, lives in Bristol and London, England.]
Find something you are passionate about and shoot your way through this obsession with elegance and you will have a potentially great project.
Duane Michals
[Photographer, b. 1932, McKeesport, Pennsylvania, lives in New York.]
The best part of us is not what we see, it’s what we feel. We are what we feel. We are not what we look at .... We’re not our eyeballs, we’re our mind. People believe their eyeballs and they’re totally wrong... That’s why I consider most photographs extremely boring—just like Muzak, inoffensive, charming, another waterfall, another sunset. This time, colors have been added to protect the innocent. It’s just boring. But that whole arena of one’s experience—grief, loneliness—how do you photograph lust? I mean, how do you deal with these things? This is what you are, not what you see. It’s all sitting up here. I could do all my work sitting in my room. I don’t have to go anywhere.
