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.
Annie Leibovitz
[Photographer, b. 1949, Westbury, Connecticut, lives in New York.]
In this day and age of things moving so, so fast, we still long for things to stop, and we as a society love the still image.
(2013)
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.
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.
Lord Snowdon (Antony Charles Robert Armstrong-Jones)
[Earl and photographer, b. 1930, London, England, d. 2017, London.]
It’s no good saying “hold it” to a moment in real life.
Barbara Morgan
[Photographer, b. 1900, Buffalo, Kansas, d. 1992, North Tarrytown, New York.]
Movement of contemporary life cannot be thought of without the machine. Our viewpoint is through a windshield, through reflected images on plate glass, blurred snatches through an elevator door. We watch quilted land patterns slowly shift far below our propeller blur, and the vibrating wing tip. Time is cogged, margins tightened, spirit is pressured. Pavement is a child's backyard and the moon is less familiar than a street lamp. If it takes a thief to catch a thief, the camera is the machine to catch the machine age.
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...
Paul Virilio
[Writer and theorist, b. 1932, Paris, lives in La Rochelle, France.]
To regain our liberty (and our distance), we must slow the images down.
