Eugene Richards
[Photographer, b. 1944, Dorchester, Massachusetts, lives in New York.]
I can photograph someone if I can touch them.
William J. T. Mitchell
[Writer, theorist, and architect, b. 1944, Melbourne, Australia, lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.]
The “taking” of human subjects by a photographer (or a writer) is a concrete social encounter, often between a damaged, victimized, and powerless individual and a relatively privileged observer, often acting as the “eye of power,” the agent of some social, political, or journalistic institution.
Weegee (Usher Fellig)
[Photographer, b. 1899, Zlothew near Lemberg, Austrian Galicia (now Zolochiv, Ukraine), d. 1968, New York.]
When you find yourself beginning to feel a bond between yourself and the people you photograph, when you laugh and cry with their laughter and tears, you will know you are on the right track.
Eugene Richards
[Photographer, b. 1944, Dorchester, Massachusetts, lives in New York.]
I’m often uncomfortable taking pictures, especially if people are grieving, or hurt, or hungry. At such times I have to remind myself that I’m a photographer and that this is my job.
Diane Arbus
[Photographer, b. 1923, New York, d. 1971, New York.]
I’ve got incredible power in my closet. Not power to do harm—just the feeling that I’ve captured people who have since died and people who will never look that way again. The camera is cruel, so I try to be as good as I can to make things even.
Charles, Earl Spencer
[Secondary royalty, b. 1964, Althorp, Northamptonshire, England, lives in Althorp.]
It would appear that every proprietor and editor of every publication that has paid for intrusive and exploitative photographs of her, encouraging greedy and ruthless individuals to risk everything in pursuit of Diana’s image, has blood on his hands today.
(On the paparazzi role in the car crash death of his sister, Lady Diana)
Mary Ellen Mark
[Photographer, b. 1940, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, d. 2015, New York.]
I just think it’s important to be direct and honest with people about why you’re photographing them and what you’re doing. After all, you are taking some of their soul, and I think you have to be clear about that.
Eddie Adams
[Photojournalist, b. 1933, New Kensington, Pennsylvania, d. 2004, New York.]
I was getting money for showing one man killing another. Two lives were destroyed and I was getting paid for it.
(On his 1968 photograph of the summary street corner execution of prisoner Nguyen Van Lem by South Vietnam's police chief, Lt. Col. Nguyen Ngoc Loan.)
