Photography Quotes - Page 26

• I need there to be documentary photographers, because my work is meta-documentary; it is a commentary about the documentary use of photography.

  Joan Fontcuberta

  Needs, Use, Documentaries

  4 Copy quote

• For me, photography must be visual, rather than intellectual and ideological.

  Roy DeCarava

  Intellectual, Visuals, Ideological

  19 Copy quote

• The denunciation of suffering by photography has replaced the religious justification of suffering in painting. Denunciation is a function of photojournalism, and in itself that's a step in the right direction.

  Luc Delahaye

  Religious, Suffering, Steps

  10 Copy quote

• Many artists, having assimilated the Conceptualists' explorations to varying degrees, have reused the painterly model and use photography, quite consciously and systematically, to produce works that stand alone and exist as photographic paintings.

  Jean-Francois Chevrier

  Artist, Use, Degrees

  4 Copy quote

• There's a reductiveness to photography, of course - in the framing of reality and the exclusion of chunks of it (the rest of the world, in fact). It's almost as if the act of photography bears some relationship to how we consciously manage the uncontrollable set of possibilities that exist in life.

  Philip-Lorca diCorcia

  Reality, Facts, Bears

  "Revisiting the Winogrand Archive: Philip Lorca diCorcia in Conversation with Leo Rubinfien". Interview with Leo Rubinfien, aperture.org.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the beginning of my photography I controlled everything: rearranging the room, lighting it, and telling people what to do and where to put their hands. By the last project, I was basically totally at the mercy of serendipity.

  Philip-Lorca diCorcia

  Hands, People, Serendipity

  6 Copy quote

• Photography, too, reduces the world to strips and rectangles; photographers scrutinize the surfaces of reality in hope of unlocking the potential for significance that is latent within them.

  Frank Gohlke

  Reality, Unlocking, World

  Frank Gohlke (2009). “Thoughts on Landscape: Collected Writings and Interviews”, p.72, Hol Art Books

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• When I photograph, I am always relating things to one another. Photography shows the connection between things, how they relate.

  Leonard Freed

  Connections, Shows, Relate

  Leonard Freed, Michael Eric Dyson (2013). “This is the Day: The March on Washington”, p.104, Getty Publications

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Photography... unites the obvious and the unconscious at the level of the limimal - the border between what we see and what we suspect.

  Philip-Lorca diCorcia

  Borders, Levels, Obvious

  10 Copy quote

• Photography is a foreign language everyone thinks he speaks.

  Philip-Lorca diCorcia

  Thinking, Language, Speak

  6 Copy quote

• Before the first press pictures, the ordinary man would visualize only those events that took place near him, on his street or in his village. Photography opened a window. As the reader's outlook expanded, the world began to shrink.

  Gisele Freund

  Men, Events, Ordinary

  5 Copy quote

• Photography mirrored the [nineteenth century] will towards rigor, towards defining details, the need for miniscule description, the long-distance optics, for technology at the service of truth, for concepts of credibility, of objectivity, the need to archive, for the consolidation of institutions like the museum, in short, towards a need to control memory.

  Joan Fontcuberta

  Memories, Distance, Technology

  4 Copy quote

• What I like so much about photography is precisely the moment that cannot be anticipated; one must be constantly on the alert, ready to acclaim the unexpected.

  Martine Franck

  Unexpected, Moments, Acclaim

  21 Copy quote

• Photography came as a substitute. I was painfully shy and found talking to people difficult; a camera in hand gave me a function, a reason to be somewhere, a witness, but not an actor.

  Martine Franck

  Hands, Talking, People

  14 Copy quote

• It's good to be around people who see [photography] as a reasonable enterprise when everyone in the neighborhood may think it's ridiculous. (On the benefit of teaching photography)

  John Divola

  Teaching, Thinking, People

  4 Copy quote

• Yet it seems so easy to take a photograph! One forgets that, apart from the technical aspects, photography can be a mental creation and the affirmation of a personality. What is marvelous about a photograph is that its possibilities are infinite; there aren't any subjects 'done to death'.

  Gisele Freund

  Personality, Done, Affirmation

  6 Copy quote

• Photography is the typical means of expression of a society founded on a civilization of technicians, conscious of the aims it has set for itself... Its power of exactly reproducing external reality, a power inherent in its technique, lends it a documentary character and makes it appear as the most faithful and impartial process for the reproduction of social life.

  Gisele Freund

  Character, Mean, Reality

  8 Copy quote

• Celebrities were quick to understand that paparazzi could make icons of them. The more a star is followed and admired, the greater the adulation. So they raised the stakes, sometimes hiding when they don't even need to. Today, stardom is more ephemeral and it's photography that gives them their celebrity status.

  Ron Galella

  Stars, Icons, Giving

  6 Copy quote

• Photography is a great adventure in thinking and looking, a wonderful magic toy that miraculously manages to combine our adult awareness with the fairy-tale world of childhood, a never-ending journey through great and small, through variations and the realm of illusions and appearances, a labyrinthine and specular place of multitudes and simulation.

  Luigi Ghirri

  Adventure, Journey, Thinking

  11 Copy quote

• Of course [photography] cannot create, nor express all we want to express. But it can be a witness of our passage on earth, like a notebook.

  Mario Giacomelli

  Notebook, Earth, Want

  7 Copy quote

• [My mother] died a few months ago, and when she was dead I kissed her lips. For me it was a beautiful moment. From then on I started living with her, asking her from time to time if she was alright, if she was pleased with me. But these things are far greater than photography, and I probably shouldn't be speaking about them.

  Mario Giacomelli

  Beautiful, Mother, Months

  7 Copy quote

• I believe that the medium of photography prevails entirely as an act of faith in the souls of those who love and practice it. And so every photograph becomes another subtle variation on the theme of the medium itself.

  Ralph Gibson

  Believe, Practice, Soul

  7 Copy quote

• It occurs to me that at the beginning one works passionately to learn photography. This takes years, and the craft is usually formed during this period. Then as time passes one finds oneself more in the role of serving the medium... Then, as in the example of several masters that I have been privileged to know personally, it appears that by having devoted oneself totally to the medium, one becomes photography.

  Ralph Gibson

  Years, Crafts, Example

  8 Copy quote

• Photography has always been a simple medium, compared to painting in oil or chipping at marble.

  John Gossage

  Simple, Oil, Painting

  Interview with Jonathan Blaustein, aphotoeditor.com. September 23, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Photography is such an important instrument in the education of our feelings and perception because of its duality. Photography represents the world we know, and suggests a world beyond what we can see. Creativity is the gap between perception and knowledge.

  Emmet Gowin

  Creativity, Feelings, Perception

  Emmet Gowin, Princeton University. Art Museum (1998). “Emmet Gowin: aerial photographs”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source