Anaïs Nin
[Writer, b. 1903, Neuilly, France, d. 1977, Los Angeles.]
We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.
Joel Meyerowitz
[Photographer, b. 1938, New York, lives in New York.]
Arriving at the rim of this famous landmark, they shuffle about, searching for a sign that says “shoot here.” With one pre-set image labeled GRAND CANYON in their minds, blinding them to what lies below, they search for the one and only “right” spot to stand.
Wright Morris
[Writer and photographer, b. 1910, Central City, Nebraska, d. 1998, Mill Valley, California.]
[We] make images to see clearly: then we see clearly what we have made.
Emmet Gowin
[Photographer, b. 1941, Danville, Virginia, lives in Princeton, New Jersey.]
Photography is a tool for dealing with things everybody knows about but isn’t attending to. My photographs are intended to represent something you don’t see.
Douglas McCulloh
[Photographer, b. 1959, Los Angeles, lives in Los Angeles.]
We live within an ever-deepening strata of visual iconography, sharing shifting signifiers up and down the layers of our lives. Eventually, we mistake abundance for vision. We become blind to our own blindness.
Ad Reinhardt
[Artist, b. 1913, Buffalo, New York, d. 1967, New York.]
The eye is a menace to clear sight.
Franz Kafka
[Writer, b. 1883, Prague, d. 1924, Prague.]
Your sight does not master the pictures, it is the pictures that master your sight.
Dorothea Lange
[Photographer, b. 1895, Hoboken, New Jersey, d. 1965, San Francisco.]
One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you’d be stricken blind. To live a visual life is an enormous undertaking, practically unattainable. I have only touched it, just touched it.
