André Bazin
[Film critic and theorist, b. 1918, Angers, France, d. 1958, Nogent-sur-Marne, Île-de-France, France.]
Photography can strip from the world that spiritual dust and grime with which our eyes have covered it.
John Szarkowski
[Curator, critic, historian, and photographer, b. 1925, Ashland, Wisconsin, d. 2007, Pittsfield, Massachusetts.]
Since its earliest days, photography has been practiced by thousands who shared no common tradition or training, who were disciplined and united by no academy or guild, who considered their medium variously as a science, an art, a trade, or an entertainment, and who were often unaware of each other’s work... Some of these pictures were the product of knowledge and skill and sensibility and invention; many were the product of accident, improvisation, misunderstanding, and empirical experiment. But whether produced by art or by luck, each picture was part of a massive assault on our traditional habits of seeing.
John Sexton
[Photographer, b. 1953, Maywood, California, lives in California.]
It is light that reveals, light that obscures, light that communicates. It is light I “listen” to. The light late in the day has a distinct quality, as it fades toward the darkness of evening. After sunset there is a gentle leaving of the light, the air begins to still, and a quiet descends. I see magic in the quiet light of dusk. I feel quiet, yet intense energy in the natural elements of our habitat. A sense of magic prevails. A sense of mystery. It is a time for contemplation, for listening—a time for making photographs.
Ernst Haas
[Photographer, b. 1921, Vienna, Austria, d. 1986, New York City.]
A picture is the expression of an impression. If the beautiful were not in us, how would we ever recognize it?
Joel Meyerowitz
[Photographer, b. 1938, New York, lives in New York.]
It’s important when photographing to see different things simultaneously. Because there is so little time in the photographic moment, it must be expanded by consciousness to let in as much as can be contained.
Elliott Erwitt
[Photographer, b. 1928, Paris, France, lives in New York.]
It’s just seeing—at least the photography I care about. You either see or you don’t see. The rest is academic. Anyone can learn how to develop. It’s how you organize what you see into a picture.
Dawoud Bey
[Photographer, b. 1953, Queens, New York, lives in Chicago.]
People say don’t stare. Through the photos, not only do I stare, but I allow viewers to stare at the subject, to see things that they cannot see with a casual glance.
Robert Adams
[Photographer and writer, b. 1937, Orange, New Jersey, lives in Astoria, Oregon.]
Basically, you photograph because you like what you see.
