Anderson Cooper
[Television news personality, b. 1967, New York, lives in New York.]
Just make it really clear to people that I’m not the kid with the grenade.
(On his portrait as a dead-looking infant—“A very young baby, N.Y.C., 1968”—by Diane Arbus.) 
Roland Barthes
[Writer, critic, and theorist, b. 1915, Cherbourg, d. 1980, Paris.]
... what founds the nature of Photography is the pose. The physical duration of this pose is of little consequence; even in the interval of a millionth of a second (Edgerton’s drop of milk) there has still been a pose, for the pose is not, here, the attitude of the target or even a technique of the Operator, but the term of an “intention” of reading: looking at a photograph, I inevitably include in my scrutiny the thought of that instant, however brief, in which a real thing happened to be motionless in front of the eye.
Ray Metzker
[Photographer, b. 1931, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, d. 2014, Philadelphia.]
What appears in the pictures was the subject’s decision, not mine. I took what they presented—delicate moments—unadorned and unglamorous, yet tender and exquisite.
George Platt Lynes
[Photographer, b. 1907, East Orange New Jersey, d. 1955, New York.]
I asked B. if he’d be willing to pose with D. A little to my surprise he said yes, so I asked D. to come along. He did. I photographed... them in all sorts of close-contact suggestive sentimental sensuous poses... D. would have been willing, but I thought B. wouldn’t... But then... everything did happen... and the sight of that big black boy screwing that super-naked little white bundle of brawn was one of the finest I’ve ever seen.
H.G. Wells
[Writer, b. 1866, Bromley, Kent, England, d. 1946, London.]
Mind you, I am not one of those who would prohibit a man wearing what he conceives to be his best clothes to the photographer’s. I like to see the little vanity peeping out—the last minute’s folly of a foolish tie, nailed up for a lifetime.
(1893)
Eleanor Callahan (née Knapp)
[Muse and model to husband Harry Callahan, b. 1916, Royal Oak, Michigan, d. 2012, Atlanta, Georgia.]
Heavens to Betsy, I was used to it by then. He’d photograph me while I was sleeping. Or he’d just sneak up on me. I never protested. Photography was as much a part of our lives as getting up in the morning.
Juergen Teller
[Photographer, b. 1964, Erlangen, Germany, lives in London.]
When you’re a well-known fashion photographer, modeling agencies call constantly. They’ll say, “This great girl is in town for three days. She’s excellent, she’s exciting. You’ve got to see her...” So I decided to really have a look at them. I opened up my studio and said, “Send anyone...” And I became quite addicted to the whole thing. I was curious to see how many girls would come. I couldn’t believe that there really were so many around.
Rankin (John Rankin Waddell)
[Photographer, b. 1966, Glasgow, Scotland, lives in London.]
When I worked on an erotic shoot… I shot digitally. It helped the models get into it because they could come over and see what was happening. It was the closest to being sexual, because it was a participatory experience.
