Jock Sturges
[Photographer, b. 1947, New York, lives in San Francisco.]
People need to realize that a cultural war has been declared here. A virulent, aggressive minority has decided that Americans don’t know themselves what it is they should see, and need to be protected by people who are wiser than they are, even if they are only a tiny sliver of the population. This represents a whole new level of attention to the arts by repressive forces. It’s very scary, and it has to be withstood.
Robert Capa (Endre Ern? Friedmann)
[Photographer, b. 1913, Budapest, Hungary, d. 1954, Thai Binh, Vietnam.]
The war is like an actress who is getting old. It’s less and less photogenic and more and more dangerous.
(1944)
Diane Arbus
[Photographer, b. 1923, New York, d. 1971, New York.]
One of the risks of appearing in public is the likelihood of being photographed.
Siegfried Kracauer
[Media critic and sociologist, b. 1889, Frankfurt, Germany, d. 1966, New York.]
The image wanders ghostlike through the present. Ghostly apparitions occur only in places where a terrible deed has been committed.
Elizabeth Bowen
[Writer, b. 1899, Dublin, Ireland, d. 1973, London.]
She walked about with the rather fated expression you see in photographs of girls who have subsequently been murdered, but nothing had so far happened to her.
Juergen Teller
[Photographer, b. 1964, Erlangen, Germany, lives in London.]
The relationship I have with my mother now, and photographing her in front of the grave, it opens up discussions, and dealings with the conversations with my mother about, when I was little, how we lived and about suicide and talking about it, so it’s something positive, it brought us more together, because people might never discuss that. Some families never go near certain subjects because it’s too hurtful or too close or too dangerous. But within doing these photographs, I also wanted to open up a conversation with her about certain things about life.
Weegee (Usher Fellig)
[Photographer, b. 1899, Zlothew near Lemberg, Austrian Galicia (now Zolochiv, Ukraine), d. 1968, New York.]
I would arrive at midnight, the cop at the information desk would be dozing... The police Teletype machine would be singing a song of crime and violence... Crime was my oyster, and I liked it.
Larry Burrows
[Photographer, b. 1926, London, d. 1971, Laos.]
Sorry if my captioning is not up to standard but with all that sniper fire around I didn’t dare wave a white notebook.
