Eliot Porter
[Photographer, b. 1901, Winnetka, Illinois, d. 1990, Santa Fe, New Mexico.]
Photographs are believed more than words; thus they can be used persuasively to show people who have never taken the trouble to look what is there.
Photography is a strong tool, a propaganda device, and a weapon for the defense of the environment... and therefore for the fostering of a healthy human race and even very likely for its survival.
I don't think it’s necessary to put your feelings about photography in words. I’ve read things that photographers have written for exhibitions and so forth about their subjective feelings about photography and mostly I think it’s disturbing. I think they’re fooling themselves very often. They’re just talking, they’re not saying anything.
I do not photograph for ulterior purposes. I photograph for the thing itself—for the photograph—without consideration of how it may be used.
Sometimes you can tell a large story with a tiny subject.
But before all else, a work of art is the creation of love. Love for the subject first and for the medium second.... Love is the general criterion by which the rare photograph is judged. It must contain it to be not less than the best of which the photographer is capable.
Nature should be viewed without distinction. All her processes and evolutions are beautiful or ugly to the unbiased undiscriminating observer. She makes no choice herself—everything that happens has equal significance.
The camera offers a way of sublimating the indefinable longing that is aroused in me by close association with birds.