Ruth Bernhard
[Photographer, b. 1905, Berlin, d. 2006, San Francisco.]
If you are not willing to see more than is visible, you won’t see anything.
W. Eugene Smith
[Photographer, b. 1918, Wichita, Kansas, d. 1978, Tucson, Arizona.]
It’s not a matter of looking, it’s a matter of seeing.
(Quoted by photographer Edouard Boubat)
George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)
[Writer, b. 1903, Motihari, Bengal, India, d. 1950, London.]
To see what is in front of one’s nose requires a constant struggle.
Franz Kafka
[Writer, b. 1883, Prague, d. 1924, Prague.]
Your sight does not master the pictures, it is the pictures that master your sight.
Ad Reinhardt
[Artist, b. 1913, Buffalo, New York, d. 1967, New York.]
The eye is a menace to clear sight.
Walker Evans
[Photographer, b. 1903, St. Louis, Missouri, d. 1975, New Haven, Connecticut.]
I work rather blindly. I have a theory that seems to work with me that some of the best things you ever do sort of come through you. You don’t know where you get the impetus and response to what’s before your eyes.
Sophie Ristelhueber
[Photographer, b. 1949, Paris, lives in Paris.]
We have at our disposal modern techniques for seeing everything, apprehending everything,
yet we see nothing.
Paul Virilio
[Writer and theorist, b. 1932, Paris, lives in La Rochelle, France.]
[When everything becomes visible,] we’ll dream of being blind. This is the engine of art.
