Walker Evans
[Photographer, b. 1903, St. Louis, Missouri, d. 1975, New Haven, Connecticut.]
Museums have a wonderful function, but there comes a time when the artist had better stay out of them, I think.
Martin Parr
[Photographer, b. 1952, Epson, Surrey, England, lives in Bristol and London, England.]
Get out there and do it. If it’s good it will be seen. There is no such thing as a brilliant new contemporary photographer who is undiscovered.
Thomas Demand
[Photographer, b. 1964, Munich, Germany, lives in Los Angeles.]
…the chances of making it as an artist are so small, I’d advise anyone to do something they are really passionate about, rather than speculating about what other people might be interested in. That way, if you don’t make it, which is quite likely, you at least know you were working on something that meant something to you.
Walker Evans
[Photographer, b. 1903, St. Louis, Missouri, d. 1975, New Haven, Connecticut.]
Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.
Garry Winogrand
[Photographer, b. 1928, New York, d. 1984, Tijuana, Mexico.]
I don’t have messages in my pictures... For me the true business of photography is to capture a bit of reality (whatever that is) on film… if, later the reality means something to someone else, so much the better.
Bill Cunningham
[Fashion photographer, b. 1929, Boston, Massachusetts, d. 2016, New York.]
You’ve got to stay on the street and let the street tell you what is. There are no shortcuts, believe me.
Robert Doisneau
[Photographer, b. 1912, Gentilly, Val-de-Marne, France, d. 1994, Montrouge, France.]
The photographer must be absorbent—like a blotter, allow himself to be permeated by the poetic moment... His technique should be like an animal function... he should act automatically.
Roland Barthes
[Writer, critic, and theorist, b. 1915, Cherbourg, d. 1980, Paris.]
The photographer, like an acrobat, must defy the laws of probability or even of possibility; at the limit, he must defy those of the interesting: the photograph becomes surprising when we do not know why it has been taken.
