Man Ray (Emanuel Radnitsky)
[Artist, b. 1890, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, d. 1976, Paris.]
Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask “how,” while others of a more curious nature will ask “why.” Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.
Ed Ruscha
[Artist, b. 1937, Omaha, Nebraska, lives in Los Angeles.]
The fact that few “painter-fine-artists” used photography in their work made it appealing.
Ben Shahn
[Photographer and artist, b. 1898, Kovno, Russia (now Kaunas, Lithuania), d. 1969, New York.]
I became interested in photography when I found my own sketching was inadequate.
Eve Arnold
[Photographer, b. 1913, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, d. 2011, London.]
What drove me and kept me going over the decades? If I had to use a single word, it would be “curiosity.”
Martin Parr
[Photographer, b. 1952, Epson, Surrey, England, lives in Bristol and London, England.]
When a mother takes pictures of her children on the beach, she doesn’t take herself for an artist; she does it for love, which is an excellent reason, from my point of view.
Ernst Haas
[Photographer, b. 1921, Vienna, Austria, d. 1986, New York City.]
All I wanted was to connect my moods with those of Paris. Beauty pains and when it pained most, I shot.
Walter Benjamin
[Philosopher, critic, and theorist, b. 1892, Berlin, d. 1940, Port Bou, France.]
No poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no symphony for the listener.
William Wegman
[Artist, b. 1943, Holyoke, Massachusetts, lives in New York.]
I was born on a tiny cot in southwestern Massachusetts during World War II. A sickly child, I turned to photography to overcome my loneliness and isolation.
