Susie Linfield
[Writer and critic, New York, lives in New York.]
Photographs illuminate the terribly damaged family of man to which, I’m afraid, we all belong.
Martin Parr
[Photographer, b. 1952, Epson, Surrey, England, lives in Bristol and London, England.]
Everyone is a photographer now, remember. That’s the great thing about photography.
Allan Sekula
[Photographer, writer, and theorist, b. 1951, Erie, Pennsylvania, d. 2013, Los Angeles.]
Communications technologies—photographic reproduction, linked computers—provide strong tools for the instrumental channeling of human desire… disguised as a benign expansion of the field of human intimacy.
(2002)
Daido Moriyama
[Photographer, b. 1938, Ikeda-cho, Osaka, Japan, lives in Tokyo.]
Until a few years ago, I was able to stave off an awareness that there is not an ounce of beauty in the world, and that humanity is a thing of extreme hideousness. So I could shoot and believe in something.
(1972)
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.
Harry Callahan
[Photographer, b. 1912, Detroit, Michigan, d. 1999, Atlanta, Georgia.]
I thought at one time I should benefit humanity, but I don’t even know what that means anymore, and then you think, well, you’re doing it to satisfy yourself, but there’s more to yourself than just satisfying yourself too, and so I really think that it’s just that I want to leave something for somebody.
James Nachtwey
[Photographer, b. 1948, Syracuse, New York, lives in New York.]
Is it possible to put an end to a form of human behavior which has existed throughout history by means of photography? The proportions of that notion seem ridiculously out of balance. Yet, that very idea has motivated me.
Jerome Liebling
[Photographer, b. 1924, New York, d. 2011, Northampton, Massachusetts.]
My sympathies have always been with the everyday people... the center of my photography.
