Philip Larkin
[Poet and writer, b. 1922, Coventry, England, d. 1985, London.]

 But o, photography! as no art is,
Faithful and disappointing! that records
Dull days as dull, and hold-it smiles as frauds,
And will not censor blemishes. 

Elinor Carcucci
[Photographer, b. 1971, Jerusalem, lives in New York.]

 I just try to shoot freely and keep my intentions separate from the market, the people, the viewers. 

Susie Bright
[Writer, feminist, and activist, b. 1958, Arlington, Virginia, lives in Santa Cruz, California.]

 Seeing lesbian photography is just the tip of my radicalized clitoris. I have modeled for, commissioned, published, and fought for these pictures, and answered threats against them. I’ve seen the feminist movement bring these pictures to life, and I’ve seen that same movement try to suppress the liberating results. 

Don DeLillo
[Writer, b. 1936, New York, lives in New York.]

 There is only one truth. Whoever controls your eyeballs runs the world. 

Idris Khan
[Artist, b. 1978, Birmingham, England, lives in London.]

 ...don’t be put off by someone telling you that your image looks too digital; maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to look. 

Robert Heinecken
[Photographer, b. 1931, Denver, d. 2006, Albuquerque, New Mexico.]

 By confusing distinctions between what constitutes eroticism versus pornography versus beauty versus banality—that’s all one continuum. It is an interesting source, and I do feel that the most highly developed sensibility I have is sexual, as opposed to intellectual or emotional, and I think it’s a matter of understanding that and accepting that and not trying to alter myself. 

Helmut Newton
[Photographer, b. 1920, Berlin, d. 2004, Los Angeles.]

 Genius and taste don’t go together. 

Jock Sturges
[Photographer, b. 1947, New York, lives in San Francisco.]

 My work is, in fact, neutral. In fact, its very neutrality is one of the things that worries me about it sometimes. There’s sometimes not a lot of emotive passion in the work. Because I shoot long shutter speeds, people are necessarily very still, and the work is very, very plain and... neutral. That neutrality isn’t sexual by nature. My subjects are just there. So if you read sexuality into my pictures, beyond what’s inherent to a human being, then the work is acting as a Rorschach, and you’re evincing sexual immaturity or sexual malaise in your own life. I have to tell you, I am sometimes deeply suspicious of the sexual mental health of some of the people who point their wavering fingers at the morality, the art, of others. 
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