Zoe Leonard
[Artist and photographer, b. 1961, Liberty, New York, lives in New York.]
When people look at a photograph, they believe it… My photographs crawl along that edge. I document the world, but from my own biased point of view.
William Mortensen
[Photographer and writer, b. 1897, Park City, Utah, d. 1965, Laguna Beach, California.]
If tone is granted to be subjected to control, why not line also, which has equal emotional significance? And if line, why not shapes and forms? And if shapes and forms, why not allow elision or emphasis of detail? And if all these things are allowed, what becomes of the “record of actuality”?... Sunk without a trace!
Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson)
[Writer, photographer, mathematician, and logician, b. 1832, Daresbury, Cheshire, England, d. 1898, Guildford, Surrey, England.]
The first half of 1864 is drawing to an end. Oh holy and merciful God, grant for Christ’s sake that the second half may be spent more as in Thy sight—that it may not be sullied with the sins that have clouded these six months, and so much of my life hitherto. Help me for Christ’s sake. Amen. I write this in my photographic studio, with the earnest hope that from this may date, by God’s blessing, the commencement of a new and better life.
Paul Strand
[Photographer, b. 1890, New York, d. 1976, Oregeval, France.]
Honesty, no less than intensity of vision, is the prerequisite of a living expression.
David Goldblatt
[Photographer, b. 1930, Randfontein, South Africa, d. 2018, Johannesburg.]
In an obvious sense, photographers, by virtue of being there and ‘recording’ the scene, are witnesses and their work becomes evidence in an almost forensic sense.
Susan Sontag
[Writer, theorist, and critic, b. 1933, New York, d. 2004, New York.]
The traditional function of portrait painting, to embellish or idealize the subject, remains the aim of everyday and
of commercial photography, but it has had a much more limited career in photography considered as an art.
Ansel Adams
[Photographer, b. 1902, San Francisco, d. 1984, Carmel, California.]
Myths and creeds are heroic struggles to comprehend the truth in the world.
Hans Magnus Enzensberger
[Writer and poet, b. 1929, Kaufbeuren, Germany, lives in Munich.]
The reality in which a camera turns up is always “posed,” e.g., the moon landing.
