Ruth Orkin
[Photographer, b. 1921, Boston, Massachusetts, d. 1985, New York.]
To be a photojournalist takes experience, skill, endurance, energy, salesmanship, organization, wheedling, climbing, gatecrashing, etc. – plus an eye and patience.
Being a photographer is making people look at what I want them to look at.
My mother said that when I was young I was constantly saying, “Look at this—Look at that.” I think that taking pictures must be my way of asking people to “Look at this—Look at that.” If my photographs make the viewer feel what I did when I first took them—“Isn’t this funny... terrible... moving... beautiful?”—then I’ve accomplished my purpose.