Robert Mapplethorpe
[Photographer, b. 1946, Floral Park, Long Island, d. 1989, Boston, Massachusetts.]
I never really wanted to be [a photographer] in art school; it wasn’t a high enough art form at that point. But then I realized that all kinds of things can be done within the context of photography, and it was also the perfect medium, or so it seemed, for the seventies and eighties, when everything was fast. If I were to make something that took weeks to do, I’d lose my enthusiasm. It would become an act of labor and the love would be gone.
Annie Leibovitz
[Photographer, b. 1949, Westbury, Connecticut, lives in New York.]
In this day and age of things moving so, so fast, we still long for things to stop, and we as a society love the still image.
(2013)
Sally Mann
[Photographer, b. 1951, Lexington, Virginia, lives in Lexington.]
We are spinning a story of what it is to grow up. It’s a complicated story and sometimes we try to take on the grand themes: anger, love, death, sensuality and beauty. Without fear and without shame.
Annette Messager
[Artist, b. 1943, Berck-sur-Mer, France, lives in Paris.]
[My work] includes something about death, and about love, because the photos always have something to do with death. The photograph is like taxidermy. It is like the animals I use. They are posed in order to appear to be alive, but they are dead. Their time has passed. The photos have to do with time and loss, and conclusion.
Nobuyoshi Araki
[Photographer, b. 1940, Tokyo, lives in Tokyo.]
If I hadn’t documented [my wife’s] death, both the description of my state of mind and my declaration of love would have been incomplete. I found consolation in unmasking lust and loss, by staging a bitter confrontation between symbols. After Yoko’s death, I didn’t want to photograph anything but life—honestly. Yet every time I pressed the button, I ended up close to death, because to photograph is to stop time. I want to tell you something, listen closely: photography is murder.
Hilla Becher
[Photographer, b. 1934, Potsdam, d. 2015, Düsseldorf.]
...an ideal in photography: that one actually enters into the object, that one looks at it in such a way that afterward one has a genuine love for it.
Joel-Peter Witkin
[Photographer, b. 1939, Brooklyn, New York, lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.]
My art is the way I perceive and define life. It is sacred work, since what I make are my prayers. These works are the measure of my character, the transfiguration of love and desire, and, finally, the quality of my soul.
Donna Ferrato
[Photographer, b. 1949, Waltham, Massachusetts, lives in New York.]
For the twenty years I spent documenting domestic violence, I would always look for the lovers and the sexy times between people—men and women, women and women, men and men—to keep my equilibrium... love is the many splendored thing in our lives.
