Greg Gorman
[Photographer, b. 1949, Kansas City, Missouri, lives in Los Angeles and Mendocino, California.]
Jeff [Koons] called me because he’d seen a portrait of David Bowie, at the beginning of the 80s—I’ve known Jeff for a long time—and he said, “Greg, I want to look like a high-profile celebrity, living on the edge.” I think that says it all.
Walker Evans
[Photographer, b. 1903, St. Louis, Missouri, d. 1975, New Haven, Connecticut.]
Evans was, and is, interested in what any present time will look like as the past.
(An unpublished note characterizing his own work)
Richard Avedon
[Photographer, b. 1923, New York, d. 2004, San Antonio, Texas.]
I can see myself as a very old man in a terrific wheelchair. Only, I won’t be photographing the tree outside my window, the way Steichen did. I’ll be photographing other old people.
Peter Stackpole
[Photographer, b. 1913, San Francisco, d. 1997, Novato, California.]
I never photographed a subject more than one or two exposures. Then I’d go on to something else. I don’t admire photographers who use motors.
Paul Strand
[Photographer, b. 1890, New York, d. 1976, Oregeval, France.]
The unintelligence of present-day photographers, that is of so-called pictorial photographers, lies in the fact that they have not discovered the basic qualities of their medium.
Edward Weston
[Photographer, b. 1886, Highland Park, Illinois, d. 1958, Wildcat Hill, California.]
The world is full of sloppy bohemians and their work betrays them.
Wright Morris
[Writer and photographer, b. 1910, Central City, Nebraska, d. 1998, Mill Valley, California.]
In the anonymous photograph, the loss of the photographer often proves to be a gain. We see only the photograph.
James Agee
[Writer, b. 1909, Knoxville, Tennessee, d. 1955, New York.]
Walker [Evans] setting up the terrible structure of the tripod crested by the black square heavy head, dangerous as that of a hunchback, of the camera; stooping beneath cloak and cloud of wicked cloth, and twisting buttons; a witchcraft preparing, colder than keenest ice, and incalculably cruel.
(On Walker Evans photographing three tenant farmer families in Hale County, Alabama, 1936)
