Luigi Ghirri
[Photographer, b. 1943, Scandiano, Italy, d. 1992, Reggio Emilia, Italy.]
The ultimate role of photography as a contemporary language of visual communication consists of its capacity to slow down our fast and chaotic way of reading images.
Gjon Mili
[Photographer, b. 1904, Korçë, Albania, d. 1984, Stamford, Connecticut.]
Time could truly be made to stand still. Texture could be retained despite violent movement.
(On the development of high-speed strobes)
Auguste Rodin
[Artist, b. 1840, Paris, France, d. 1917, Paris.]
It is the artist who is truthful and photography which lies, for in reality time does not stop, and if the artist succeeds in producing the impression of a movement which takes several moments for accomplishment, his work is certainly much less conventional than the scientific image, where time is abruptly suspended.
Garry Winogrand
[Photographer, b. 1928, New York, d. 1984, Tijuana, Mexico.]
What photograph isn’t a still life?
Jean Cocteau
[Writer, poet, artist, and filmmaker, b. 1889, Maisons-Lafitte, France, d. 1963, Milly-la-Foret, France.]
Nothing is more intriguing than a still photograph in the middle of a motion picture... Just as an accident is a cry changed into silence and not a silence after a cry, photography is speed rendered motionless...
Henri Cartier-Bresson
[Photographer and painter, b. 1908, Chanteloup, France, d. 2004, Paris.]
Inside movement there is one moment in which the elements are in balance. Photography must seize the importance of this moment and hold immobile the equilibrium of it.
Jeff Wall
[Photographer, b. 1946, Vancouver, Canada, lives in Vancouver.]
Reportage, or the spontaneous, fleeting aspect of the photographic image, appear simultaneously with the pictorial, tableau-like aspect at the origins of photography; its traces can be seen in the blurred elements of Daguerre’s first scenes. Reportage evolves in the pursuit of the blurred parts of the pictures.
Lisette Model
[Photographer, b. 1906, Vienna, Austria, d. 1983, New York.]
Speed, the fundamental condition of the activities of our day is the power of photography, indeed the modern art of today, the art of the split second.
