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.
Miroslav Tichý
[Photographer, b. 1926, Nětčice, Czechoslovakia, d. 2011, Kyjov, Czech Republic.]
If you want to be famous, you have to do whatever you’re doing worse than anyone else in the whole world.
Arno Rafael Minkkinen
[Photographer, b. 1945, Helsinki, Finland, lives in Andover, Massachusetts.]
Be the caretaker of your vision. Make it famous. And above all, remember, that art is risk made visible.
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)
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.
Sally Mann
[Photographer, b. 1951, Lexington, Virginia, lives in Lexington.]
Photograph what is important to you, what is closest to you, photograph the great events of your life, and let your photography live with your reality.
Harry Callahan
[Photographer, b. 1912, Detroit, Michigan, d. 1999, Atlanta, Georgia.]
To be a photographer, one must photograph. No amount of book learning, no checklist of seminars attended, can substitute for the simple act of making pictures. Experience is the best teacher of all. And for that, there is no guarantee that one will become an artist. Only the journey matters.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
[Photographer and painter, b. 1908, Chanteloup, France, d. 2004, Paris.]
Thinking should be done beforehand and afterwards—never while actually taking a photograph.
