Nan Goldin Quotes

Quotes about:

• My desire is to preserve the sense of people’s lives, to endow them with the strength and beauty I see in them. I want the people in my pictures to stare back.

  Nan Goldin

  People, Desire, Want

  Nan Goldin, Marvin Heiferman, Mark Holborn, Suzanne Fletcher (1986). “The ballad of sexual dependency”, Aperture

  153 Copy quote

• I used to think that I could never lose anyone if I photographed them enough. In fact, my pictures show me how much I’ve lost.

  Nan Goldin

  Thinking, Facts, Enough

  161 Copy quote

• Yes, photography saved my life. Every time I go through something scary, traumatic, I survive by taking pictures.

  Nan Goldin

  Photography, Scary, Taking Pictures

  99 Copy quote

• A lot of people seem to think that art or photography is about the way things look, or the surface of things. That's not what it's about for me. It's really about relationships and feelings...it's really hard for me to do commercial work because people kind of want me to do a Nan Goldin. They don't understand that it's not about a style or a look or a setup. It's about emotional obsession and empathy.

  Nan Goldin

  Photography, Art, Emotional

  136 Copy quote

• I always thought if I photographed anyone or anything enough, I would never lose the person, I would never lose the memory, I would never lose the place. But the pictures show me how much I've lost.

  Nan Goldin

  Memories, Enough, Lost

  100 Copy quote

• My work has been about making a record of my life that no one can revise. I photograph myself in times of trouble or change in order to find the ground to stand on in the change. I was coming out of a melancholic phase. This was taken when I was traveling extensively, on the road from hotel to hotel. You get displaced, and then taking self-portraits becomes a way of hanging on to yourself.

  Nan Goldin

  Taken, Self, Order

  94 Copy quote

• For me it is not a detachment to take a picture. It's a way of touching somebody - it's a caress… I think that you can actually give people access to their own soul.

  Nan Goldin

  Thinking, People, Giving

  102 Copy quote

• I knew from a very early age, that what I saw on tv had nothing to do with real life. So I wanted to make a record of real life. That included having a camera with me at all times.

  Nan Goldin

  Real, Age, Cameras

  84 Copy quote

• I think the wrong things are kept private

  Nan Goldin

  Thinking, Wrong Things

  52 Copy quote

• My work is mostly about memory. It is very important to me that everybody that I have been close to in my life I make photographs of them.

  Nan Goldin

  Memories, Important, Photograph

  60 Copy quote

• The camera is as much a part of my everyday life as talking or eating or sex.

  Nan Goldin

  Sex, Talking, Everyday

  Nan Goldin, Marvin Heiferman, Mark Holborn, Suzanne Fletcher (1986). “The ballad of sexual dependency”, Aperture

  81 Copy quote

• My work shows the beauty in so many different kinds of people because I never photograph anyone who I don't think is beautiful. I never take an intentionally mean picture.

  Nan Goldin

  Beautiful, Mean, Thinking

  Source: foggysapphires.wordpress.com

  42 Copy quote

• I just get inspired to take a picture by the beauty and vulnerability of my friends.

  Nan Goldin

  Inspired, My Friends, Vulnerability

  Nan Goldin, Taka Kawachi (1998). “Nan Goldin: couples and loneliness”, Korinsha Pr

  65 Copy quote

• If I want to take a picture, I take it no matter what.

  Nan Goldin

  Want, Matter, No Matter What

  35 Copy quote

• I usually work really instinctively and it's afterwards that I think about what it means. I don't know consciously that I have these themes that run through my work.

  Nan Goldin

  Running, Mean, Thinking

  Source: foggysapphires.wordpress.com

  38 Copy quote

• I'm very influenced by a lot of things, but my chief influence is my friends and what I see and what I feel and my own experiences and memory.

  Nan Goldin

  Memories, Influence, Chiefs

  Source: foggysapphires.wordpress.com

  31 Copy quote

• The thing that drives me most crazy in the world is not to be believed.

  Nan Goldin

  Crazy, World

  Source: foggysapphires.wordpress.com

  6 Copy quote

• There are ways of angling the camera. I don't just use a tripod. The only time I did that was in '88 when I first came out of detox, I spent every day doing self-portraits to fit back into my own skin. I didn't know what the world looked like - what I looked like - so in order to fit back into myself, I took self-portraits everyday to give myself courage and to fit the pieces back together. I used a tripod then.

  Nan Goldin

  Self, Order, Giving

  Source: foggysapphires.wordpress.com

  22 Copy quote

• It's so rare to see a woman's sexuality, real female sexuality, either in the shows or in the clothes.

  Nan Goldin

  Real, Clothes, Female

  Source: foggysapphires.wordpress.com

  23 Copy quote

• The idea that a fashion photograph could make you cry doesn't happen. And I'm proud to say that my slideshows can make people cry.

  Nan Goldin

  Fashion, Ideas, People

  Source: foggysapphires.wordpress.com

  5 Copy quote

• Yes, I need to be fed but the need to be loved by friends has been as important to me than any lover I've had all my life. This is part of the reasons that my lovers don't stay because they are jealous of how much I care about my friends.

  Nan Goldin

  Jealous, Important, Care

  Source: foggysapphires.wordpress.com

  12 Copy quote

• The complete disregard for the camera's presence indicates its complete saturation in their lives. The subject neither notices nor seems to care that someone has been invited into their private moment.

  Nan Goldin

  Cameras, Care, Moments

  30 Copy quote

• I don't even like photography at all. I'm just doing photography until I can do something better.

  Nan Goldin

  Photography, Something Better, Can Do Something

  13 Copy quote

• My life there[in New York] was almost entirely about gay men for 30 years.

  Nan Goldin

  New York, Gay, Men

  Source: foggysapphires.wordpress.com

  6 Copy quote

• I've become really interested in the landscape but not as landscape but more as it relates to mood and how we live and how the outside impacts on the inside. I didn't really look at the outside world during the years I was photographing the Ballad as I was locked inside my house and I lived totally inside.

  Nan Goldin

  Impact, Years, House

  Source: foggysapphires.wordpress.com

  9 Copy quote

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