Alex Webb
[Photographer, b. 1952, San Francisco, lives in Brooklyn, New York.]
Sometimes not taking a photograph can be as problematic as taking one.
W. Eugene Smith
[Photographer, b. 1918, Wichita, Kansas, d. 1978, Tucson, Arizona.]
I will do no photography... that compromises my intelligence, my taste, my integrity.
(On his dissatisfaction with working for LIFE Magazine, in a letter to Walker Evans, 1954)
Shomei Tomatsu
[Photographer, b. 1930, Nagoya, Japan, d. 2012, Okinawa, Japan.]
A photographer looks at everything, which is why he must look from beginning to end. Face the subject head-on, stay fixed, turn the entire body into an eye and face the world.
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.
Terence Donovan
[Photographer, b. 1936, Stepney, England, d. 1996, London.]
Don’t buy a Hasselblad unless you have a tripod and an assistant. If you drop the magazine, it tends to be embarrassing, like trying to spoon up your guacamole in Acapulco. When I see a Hampstead gynaecologist on holiday festooned with a Hasselblad and lenses and no tripod, I know he is a photographer wanker.
Frank Horvat
[Photographer, b. 1928, Abbazia, Italy, now Opatija, Croatia, lives in Paris.]
Photography is the art of not pushing the button.
Gueorgui Pinkhassov
[Photographer, b. 1952, Moscow, lives in Paris.]
Don’t be afraid to take bad pictures, because good pictures are the mistakes of bad pictures.
Bill Jay
[Photographer, writer, and curator, b. 1940, Maidenhead, England, d. 2009, Samara, Costa Rica.]
Style is not like a filter which when placed over the lens will affect the image… When I walk through the forest at night, the track emerges from the darkness by not looking for it. A unique style emerges in photography by ignoring it, concentrating on the subject...
