Janet Malcolm
[Writer, b. 1934, Prague, Czechoslovakia, lives in New York.]
...[Edward] Weston’s work presents one of the strongest cases there is for viewing photography as an ancillary rather than primary form—one that is tied to painting and sculpture and always a few steps behind them.
Norman Mailer
[Writer, b. 1923, Long Branch, New Jersey, d. 2007, New York.]
Giving a camera to Diane Arbus is like putting a live grenade in the hands of a child.
David Hockney
[Artist, b. 1937, Bradford, England, lives in Bridlington, Yorkshire; London; and Los Angeles.]
…I’ve long felt that the one aspect of photography that seems to have let us down is, actually, landscape. Photography seems to be rather good at portraiture, or can be. But it can’t tell you about space, which is the essence of landscape… Even Ansel Adams can’t quite prepare you for what Yosemite looks like when you go through that [Wawona] tunnel and you come out the other side.
Janet Malcolm
[Writer, b. 1934, Prague, Czechoslovakia, lives in New York.]
[Richard Avedon’s] camera dwells on the horrible things that age can do to people’s faces—on the flabby flesh, the slack skin, the ugly growths, the puffy eyes, the knotted necks, the aimless wrinkles, the fearful and anxious set of the mouth, the marks left by sickness, madness, alcoholism, and irreversible disappointment.
Eliot Porter
[Photographer, b. 1901, Winnetka, Illinois, d. 1990, Santa Fe, New Mexico.]
I don't think it’s necessary to put your feelings about photography in words. I’ve read things that photographers have written for exhibitions and so forth about their subjective feelings about photography and mostly I think it’s disturbing. I think they’re fooling themselves very often. They’re just talking, they’re not
saying anything.
Brett Weston
[Photographer, b. 1911, Los Angeles, d. 1993, Kona, Hawaii.]
My work is my language and I don’t discuss it very easily. It’s difficult for me to verbalize my feelings, or to intellectualize my work. In fact, it used to annoy me when Ansel Adams and Paul Strand yak-yak-yakked about what photography meant, and I told them so.
Jeff Wall
[Photographer, b. 1946, Vancouver, Canada, lives in Vancouver.]
I’m not sure any of us has made photographs as good as Evans’.
Marvin Israel
[Artist and art director, b. 1924, New York, d. 1985, New York.]
The photograph is like her trophy—it’s what she received as the reward for this adventure.
(On Diane Arbus)
