It is not merely the likeness which is precious... but the association and the sense of nearness involved in the thing... the fact of the very shadow of the person lying there fixed forever! It is the very sanctification of portraits I think -- and it is not at all monstrous in me to say that I would rather have such a memorial of one I dearly loved, than the noblest Artist's work ever produced.
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Most modern reproducers of life, even including the camera, really repudiate it. We gulp down evil, choke at good.
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Photography suits the temper of this age -- of active bodies and minds. It is a perfect medium for one whose mind is teeming with ideas, imagery, for a prolific worker who would be slowed down by painting or sculpting, for one who sees quickly and acts decisively, accurately.
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In photography there are no shadows that cannot be illuminated.
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I have often thought that if photography were difficult in the true sense of the term -- meaning that the creation of a simple photograph would entail as much time and effort as the production of a good watercolor or etching -- there would be a vast improvement in total output. The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.
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For half a century, photography has been the art form of the untalented. Obviously some pictures are more satisfactory than others, but where is credit due? To the designer of the camera? To the finger on the button? To the law of averages?
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I have often thought that if photography were difficult in the true sense of the term-meaning that the creation of a simple photograph would entail as much time and effort as the production of a good watercolor or etching-there would be a vast improvement in total output. The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.
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I took to photography like a duck to water. I never wanted to do anything else. Excitement about the subject is the voltage which pushes me over the mountain of drudgery necessary to produce the final photograph.
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In my mind's eye, I visualize how a particular . . . sight and feeling will appear on a print. If it excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph. It is an intuitive sense, an ability that comes from a lot of practice.
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To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event.
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The camera can represent flesh so superbly that, if I dared, I would never photograph a figure without asking that figure to take its clothes off.
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If I were just curious, it would be very hard to say to someone, I want to come to your house and have you talk to me and tell me the story of your life. I mean people are going to say, You're crazy. Plus they're going to keep mighty guarded. But the camera is a kind of license. A lot of people, they want to be paid that much attention and that's a reasonable kind of attention to be paid.
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It is not altogether wrong to say that there is no such thing as a bad photograph -- only less interesting, less relevant, less mysterious ones.
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A new era in the physiological investigation of linguistic sounds was opened up by X-ray photography.
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I always thought of photography as a naughty thing to do -- that was one of my favorite things about it, and when I first did it, I felt very perverse.
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In America, the photographer is not simply the person who records the past, but the one who invents it.
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I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything.
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What the human eye observes causally and incuriously, the eye of the camera notes with relentless fidelity.
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The camera has an interest in turning history into spectacle, but none in reversing the process. At best, the picture leaves a vague blur in the observer's mind; strong enough to send him into battle perhaps, but not to have him understand why he is going.
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The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box.
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Does not the very word 'creative' mean to build, to initiate, to give out, to act - rather than to be acted upon, to be subjective? Living photography is positive in its approach, it sings a song of life - not death.
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The camera is a killing chamber, which speeds up the time it claims to be conserving. Like coffins exhumed and priced open, the photographs put on show what we were and what we will be again.
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The magic of photography is metaphysical. What you see in the photograph isn't what you saw at the time. The real skill of photography is organized visual lying.
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Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past.
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In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a Leitmotiv.
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Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art
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The painter constructs, the photographer discloses.
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When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
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A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.
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Blessed be the inventor of photography! It has given more positive pleasure to poor suffering humanity than anything else that has cast up in my time -- this art by which even the poor can possess themselves of tolerable of their absent dear ones.
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