Roland Barthes
[Writer, critic, and theorist, b. 1915, Cherbourg, d. 1980, Paris.]
The literal photograph reduces us to the scandal of horror, not to the horror itself.
Hu?nh Công “Nick” Ut
[Photographer, b. 1951, rural Mekong Delta, province of Long An, Vietnam, lives in Los Angeles.]
I’m a lucky guy… That picture gave me respect and allowed me to keep doing my job.
(On his photograph of nine-year-old Kim Phuc fleeing the village of Trang Bang, Vietnam after it was napalm bombed in 1972.)
Mary Ellen Mark
[Photographer, b. 1940, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, d. 2015, New York.]
I go into every story thinking I’m going to fail. I think about that all the time—I think it’s going to be terrible. Every story is like the first I’ve ever done.
Wim Wenders
[Artist and filmmaker, b. 1945, Düsseldorf, lives in Berlin.]
[Photography has] spiritual links with the end of the world.
August Sander
[Photographer, b. 1876, Herdorf, Germany, d. 1964, Cologne.]
I never made a person look bad. They do that themselves. The portrait is your mirror.
Josef Koudelka
[Photographer, b. 1938, Biskovice, Moravia, Czechoslovakia, lives in Paris.]
If I am dissatisfied, it’s simply because good photos are few and far between. A good photo is a miracle.
Minor White
[Photographer, writer, and theorist, b. 1908, Minneapolis, Minnesota, d. 1976, Cambridge, Massachusetts.]
The objectivity of the camera, used wrongly, is the very devil.
Laurel Nakadate
[Video artist and photographer, b. 1975, Austin, Texas, lives in New York.]
[Photography] ties back into this feeling of wanting to watch things fall and the moment before they break. Fireworks are that way for me—this lovely thing that blows up and is gone. It all goes back to this desire to record things before they disappear—the original reason we take pictures, right?
