Eliot Porter
[Photographer, b. 1901, Winnetka, Illinois, d. 1990, Santa Fe, New Mexico.]
Sometimes you can tell a large story with a tiny subject.
Elizabeth McCausland
[Writer and critic, b. 1899, Wichita, Kansas, d. 1965, New York.]
We have all had a surfeit of “pretty” pictures, of romantic views of hilltop, seaside, rolling fields, skyscrapers seen askew, picturesque bits of life torn out of their sordid context. It is life that is exciting and important, and life whole and
unretouched. (1939)
Penelope Umbrico
[Photographer, b. 1957, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, lives in New York.]
I have always been more interested in how we as a culture see things than how I see in particular.
Harry Callahan
[Photographer, b. 1912, Detroit, Michigan, d. 1999, Atlanta, Georgia.]
If you choose your subject selectively—intuitively—the camera can write poetry.
Robert Mapplethorpe
[Photographer, b. 1946, Floral Park, Long Island, d. 1989, Boston, Massachusetts.]
My whole point is to transcend the subject… go beyond the subject somehow, so that the composition, the lighting, all around, reaches a certain point of perfection.
Paul Strand
[Photographer, b. 1890, New York, d. 1976, Oregeval, France.]
Subject matter is extremely important to the artist, because until he talks about something that really means something to him, the audience cannot see anything important or interesting.
Margaret Bourke-White
[Photographer, b. 1904, New York, d. 1971, Darien, Connecticut.]
Saturate yourself with your subject and the camera will all but take you by the hand.
Rineke Dijkstra
[Photographer, b. 1959, Sittard, The Netherlands, lives in Amsterdam.]
It’s like Diane Arbus said, you are looking for the “gap between intention and effect.” People think that they present themselves one way, but they cannot help but show something else as well. It’s impossible to have
everything under control.
