W. Eugene Smith
[Photographer, b. 1918, Wichita, Kansas, d. 1978, Tucson, Arizona.]
... and each time I pressed the shutter release it was a shouted condemnation hurled with the hope that the picture might survive through the years, with the hope that they might echo through the minds of men in the future—causing them caution and remembrance and realization.
George Rodger
[Photojournalist, b. 1908, Hale, Cheshire, England, d. 1995, Smarden, Kent, England.]
When I discovered that I could look at the horror of Belsen—4,000 dead and starving lying around—and think only of a nice photographic composition, I knew something had happened to me and it had to stop.
James Nachtwey
[Photographer, b. 1948, Syracuse, New York, lives in New York.]
The greatest statesmen, philosophers, humanitarians… have not been able to put an end to war. Why place that demand on photography?
Robert Capa (Endre Ern? Friedmann)
[Photographer, b. 1913, Budapest, Hungary, d. 1954, Thai Binh, Vietnam.]
If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.
Harold Evans
[Writer and editor, b. 1928, Manchester, England, lives in New York.]
People were murdered for the camera; and some photographers and a television camera crew departed without taking a picture in the hope that in the absence of cameramen acts might not be committed. Others felt that the mob was beyond appeal to mercy. They stayed and won Pulitzer Prizes. Were they right?
Anne Frank
[Writer, b. 1929, Frankfurt, Germany, d. 1945, Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Germany.]
This is a photo as I would wish myself to look all the time. Then I would maybe have a chance to come to Hollywood.
(10, October, 1942; Handwritten inscription on a photograph)
James Nachtwey
[Photographer, b. 1948, Syracuse, New York, lives in New York.]
For me the strength of photography lies in its ability to evoke humanity. If war is an attempt to negate humanity, then photography can be perceived as the opposite of war.
Donald McCullin
[Photographer, b. 1935, Finsbury Park, London, lives in Somerset, England.]
I’m like an old junkie, in a way. You don’t stick syringes in your arm—you go straight for the most important part of your body, the brain. You are destroying it the moment you go to your first war.
