Lee Friedlander
[Photographer, b. 1934, Aberdeen, Washington, lives in New York.]
[Garry Winogrand] was a bull of a man and the world his china shop.
Nan Goldin
[Photographer, b. 1953, Washington, D.C., lives in New York and Paris.]
If I want to take a picture, I take it no matter what.
Robert Frank
[Photographer and filmmaker, b. 1924, Zürich, Switzerland, lives in Mabou, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada, and New York.]
I hate to be photographed. I can’t stand to be pinned in front of a camera. I do that to people. I don’t like it done to me.
Andy Warhol
[Artist, b. 1928, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, d. 1987, New York.]
I can’t bear to let all this beautiful talk go by. Everybody says... fantastic things. People are always putting it down as an invasion of privacy, but I think everyone should be bugged all the time... bugged and photographed.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
[Photographer and painter, b. 1908, Chanteloup, France, d. 2004, Paris.]
There is something appalling about photographing people. It is certainly some sort of violation; so if sensitivity is lacking, there can be something barbaric about it.
James Agee
[Writer, b. 1909, Knoxville, Tennessee, d. 1955, New York.]
Walker [Evans] setting up the terrible structure of the tripod crested by the black square heavy head, dangerous as that of a hunchback, of the camera; stooping beneath cloak and cloud of wicked cloth, and twisting buttons; a witchcraft preparing, colder than keenest ice, and incalculably cruel.
(On Walker Evans photographing three tenant farmer families in Hale County, Alabama, 1936)
Andres Serrano
[Artist, b. 1950, New York, lives in New York.]
I’ve always felt that I wanted my work to be more or less open to interpretation and so even though some of the work has got people riled up, my attitude has always been I didn’t mean to offend you but if I did, fuck it, I’m not going to apologize.
Mary Ellen Mark
[Photographer, b. 1940, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, d. 2015, New York.]
It’s important for me to be honest. The men, women, and children I photograph are straightforward with me. I have to respect them for what they are… What I look for is compassion, not pity.
