Observations on Photography, Society, and Art.
“Do you think it’s possible for the camera to lie?”
“It certainly is. It almost always does.”
Walker EvansPhotography is not about the thing photographed. It is about how that thing looks photographed.
Garry WinograndOf all the means of expression, photography is the only one that fixes a precise moment in time.
Henri Cartier-BressonPhotography is about finding out what can happen in the frame. When you put four edges around some facts, you change those facts.
Garry WinograndPeople say they need to express their emotions, I’m sick of that. Photography doesn’t teach you to express your emotions, it teaches you to see.
Berenice AbbottI have yet to see a fine photograph which is not a good document.
Berenice AbbottThere’s nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.
Ansel AdamsPhotography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation.
Henri Cartier-BressonLet us first say what photography is not.
A photograph is not a painting, a poem, a symphony, or a dance. It is not just a pretty picture, not an exercise in contortionist techniques and sheer print quality.
It is or should be a significant document, a penetrating statement, which can be described in a very simple term – selectivity.
Berenice AbbottFor me, the subject of a picture is always more important than the picture. And more complicated.
Diane ArbusThe photograph isn’t what was photographed. It’s something else. It’s a new fact.
Garry WinograndI have yet to see a fine photograph which is not a good document.
Berenice AbbottIt’s always seemed to me that photography tends to deal with facts, whereas film tends to deal with fiction.
Diane ArbusI think there isn’t a photograph in the world that has any narrative ability. They do not tell stories. They show you what something looks like. To a camera.
Garry Winogrand