Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi)
[Political leader and thinker, b. 1869, Porbandar, Gujarat, India, d. 1948, New Delhi, India.]
I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.
Tim Page
[Photographer, b. 1944, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, lives in Brisbane, Australia.]
What we [photojournalists] have going for us is compassion. In Vietnam, photography swayed public opinion, and it still can. It can make a difference.
Martin Munkacsi
[Photographer, b. 1898, Kolozsvár, Hungary, (now Cluj-Napoca, Romania), d. 1963, New York.]
To see in a thousandth of a second what indifferent people come close to without noticing—that is the principle of photographic reportage. And in the thousandth of a second that follows, to take the photo of what one has seen—that is the practical side of reportage.
Andy Grundberg
[Critic, curator, and educator, lives in Washington, D.C.]
The arena of art photography, which first seized center stage from photojournalism and now seems ready to cede it back, remains in control. For the shows and books we will be seeing are not photojournalistic in conception and design, but rather view photojournalism as a wellspring of artistic imagery... In short, photojournalism is not displacing art photography. It is being incorporated into the fine art fold, joining fashion, advertising and topographic survey photography as subjects for scholarship and delectation.
(1985)
Allan Sekula
[Photographer, writer, and theorist, b. 1951, Erie, Pennsylvania, d. 2013, Los Angeles.]
Documentary photography has amassed mountains of evidence. And yet, in this pictorial presentation of scientific and legalistic “fact,” the genre has contributed much to spectacle, to retinal excitation, to voyeurism, to terror, envy and nostalgia, and only a little to the critical understanding of the social world.
Slim Aarons
[Photographer, b. 1916, New York, d. 2006, Montrose, New York.]
The only beach I was interested in landing on was one decorated with beautiful seminude girls tanning in a tranquil sun.
(On declining a photojournalism offer to cover the Korean War)
Thomas Ruff
[Photographer, b. 1958, Zell, Germany, lives in Dusseldorf, Germany.]
With digitalization you can change parts of the picture very easily. It’s not serious if you do it for yourself, or within the arts, but in my eyes it’s a crime if you do it for the news.
Weegee (Usher Fellig)
[Photographer, b. 1899, Zlothew near Lemberg, Austrian Galicia (now Zolochiv, Ukraine), d. 1968, New York.]
If I had a picture of two handcuffed criminals being booked, I would cut the picture in half and get five bucks for each.
