Sally Mann
[Photographer, b. 1951, Lexington, Virginia, lives in Lexington.]

 Exploitation lies at the root of every great portrait, and all of us know it. Even the simplest picture of another person is ethically complex. 

Jacob Riis
[Photographer and reformer, b. 1849, Denmark, d. 1914, Barre, Massachusetts.]

 It was not too much to say that our party carried terror wherever it went. The flashlight of those days was carried in cartridges fired from a revolver. The spectacle of half a dozen strange men invading a house in the midnight hour armed with big pistols which they shot off recklessly was hardly reassuring, however sugary our speech, and it was not to be wonder at if the tenants bolted through windows and down fire-escapes wherever we went. (1918) 

Anders Petersen
[Photographer, b. 1944, Solna, Sweden, lives in Stockholm.]

 For me, the camera is like an entrance to the private lives of other people. And if you are curious like me, it is a fantastic tool. 

Robert Frank
[Photographer and filmmaker, b. 1924, Zürich, Switzerland, lives in Mabou, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada, and New York.]

 When someone becomes aware of the camera, it becomes a different picture. 

Pieter Hugo
[Photographer, b. 1976, Johannesburg, South Africa, lives in Cape Town.]

 One of the things intrinsic to the medium of photography is that it’s inherently voyeuristic, and that’s what gives the medium a lot of energy. But it also creates problems that you have to solve. 

Joel-Peter Witkin
[Photographer, b. 1939, Brooklyn, New York, lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.]

 I had met these people the night before at the S and M club, and had convinced them to be photographed. When all was ready, this one said “Mr. Witkin, I don’t want to show my thing. Is there any way we can make it be there without showing it?” I just shouted, “Get the fuck on the set”—so he acted submissive and kind of liked it. But the guy who was to put the blade into his cock started complaining: “I can’t reach this.” So I screamed, “You just have to.” I was kind of nervous. I’d been working all night to set everything up. 

Helmut Newton
[Photographer, b. 1920, Berlin, d. 2004, Los Angeles.]

 Any photographer who says he’s not a voyeur is either stupid or a liar. 

Danny Lyon
[Photographer, b. 1942, New York, lives in Ulster County, New York.]

 The pictures do not ask you to “help” these people, but something much more difficult; to be briefly, intensely aware of their existence, an existence as real and significant as your own. 
quotes 1-8 of 212
page 1 of 27 next page last page
display quotes