—John Szarkowski
Sometimes I would set up the camera in a corner of the room, sit some distance away from it with a remote control in my hand, and watch our people while Mr. Caldwell talked with them. It might be an hour before their faces or gestures gave us what we were trying to express, but the instant it occurred the scene was imprisoned on a sheet of film before they knew what had happened.
—Margaret Bourke-White
The picture of Mayor William Gaynor of New York at the moment of being shot by an assassin in 1910. The Mayor was about to board a ship to go on holiday in Europe as an American newspaper photographer arrived. He asked the Mayor to pose for a picture and as he raised his camera two shots were fired from the crowd. In the midst of this confusion the photographer remained calm and his picture of the blood-spattered Mayor lurching into the arms of an aide has become part of photographic history.
—a caption in "Click": A Pictorial History of the Photograph (1974)
I have been photographing our toilet, that glossy enameled receptacle of extraordinary beauty.... Here was every sensuous curve of the "human figure divine" but minus the imperfections. Never did the Greeks reach a more significant consummation to their culture, and it somehow reminded me, forward movement of finely progressing contours, of the Victory of Samothrace.
—Edward Weston
Good taste at this time in a technological democracy ends up to be nothing more than taste prejudice. If all that art does is create good or bad taste, then it has failed completely. In the question of taste analysis, it is just as easy to express good or bad taste in the kind of refrigerator, carpet or armchair that you have in your home. What good camera artists are trying to do now is to raise art beyond the level of mere taste. Camera Art must be completely devoid of logic. The logic vacuum must be there so that the viewer applies his own logic to it and the work, in fact, makes itself before the viewer's eyes. So that it becomes a direct reflection of the viewer's consciousness, logic, morals, ethics and taste. The work should act as a feedback mechanism to the viewer's own working model of himself.
—Les Levine ("Camera Art," in Studio International,
July/August 1975)
Women and men—it's an impossible subject, because there can be no answers. We can find only bits and pieces of clues. And this small portfolio is just the crudest sketches of what it's all about. Maybe, today, we're planting the seeds of more honest relationships between women and men.
—Duane Michals
"Why do people keep photographs?"
"Why? Goodness knows! Why do people keep things—junk—trash, bits and pieces. They do—that's all there is to it!"
"Up to a point I agree with you. Some people keep things. Some people throw everything away as soon as they have done with it. That, yes, it is a matter of temperament. But I speak now especially of photographs. Why do people keep, in particular, photograph5?"
"As I say, because they just don't throw things away. Or else because it reminds them—"
Poirot pounced on the words.
"Exactly. It reminds them. Now again we ask—why? Why does a woman keep a photograph of herself when young? And I say that the first reason is, essentially, vanity. She has been a pretty girl and she keeps a photograph of herself to remind her of what a pretty girl she was. It encourages her when her mirror tells her unpalatable things. She says, perhaps, to a friend, That was me when I was eighteen...' and she sighs.. .You agree?"
"Yes—yes, I should say that's true enough."
"Then that is reason No. 1. Vanity. Now reason No. 2. Sentiment."
"That's the same thing?"
"No, no, not quite. Because this leads you to preserve, not only your own photograph but that of someone else...A picture of your married daughter—when she was a child sitting on a hearthrug with tulle round her.... Very embarrassing to the subject sometimes, but mothers like to do it. And sons and daughters often keep pictures of their mothers, especially, say, if their mother died young. 'This was my mother as a girl.'"
"I'm beginning to see what you're driving at, Poirot."
"And there is, possibly, a third category. Not vanity, not sentiment, not love—perhaps hate—what do you say?"
"Hate?"
"Yes. To keep a desire for revenge alive. Someone who has injured you—you might keep a photograph to remind you, might you not?"
—from Agatha Christie's Mrs. McGinty's Dead (1951)
Previously, at dawn that day, a commission assigned to the task had discovered the corpse of Antonio Conselheiro. It was lying in one of the huts next to the arbor. After a shallow layer of earth had been removed, the body appeared wrapped in a sorry shroud—a filthy sheet—over which pious hands had strewn a few withered flowers. There, resting upon a reed mat, were the last remains of the "notorious and barbarous agitator".... They carefully disinterred the body, precious relic that it was—the sole prize, the only spoils of war this conflict had to offer!—taking the greatest of precautions to see that it did not fall apart.... They photographed it afterward and drew up an affidavit in due form, certifying its identity; for the entire nation must be thoroughly convinced that at last this terrible foe had been done away with.
—from Euclides da Cunha's Rebellion in the Backlands (1902)
Men still kill one another, they have not yet understood how they live, why they live; politicians fail to observe that the earth is an entity, yet television (Telehor) has been invented: the "Far Seer"—tomorrow we shall be able to look into the heart of our fellow-man, be everywhere and yet be alone; illustrated books, newspapers, magazines are printed—in millions. The unambiguousness of the real, the truth in the everyday situation is there for all classes. The hygiene of the optical, the health of the visible is slowly filtering through.
—Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1925)
As I progressed further with my project, it became obvious that it was really unimportant where I chose to photograph. The particular place simply provided an excuse to produce work.... you can only see what you are ready to see—what mirrors your mind at that particular time.
—George Tice
I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.
—Garry Winogrand
The Guggenheim trips were like elaborate treasure hunts, with false clues mixed among the genuine ones. We were always being directed by friends to their own favorite sights or views or formations. Sometimes these tips paid off with real Weston prizes; sometimes the recommended item proved to be a dud.. .and we drove for miles with no payoffs. By that time, I had reached the point of taking no pleasure in scenery that didn't call Edward's camera out, so he didn't risk much when he settled back against the seat saying, "I'm not asleep—just resting my eyes"; he knew my eyes were at his service, and that the moment anything with a "Weston" look appeared, I would stop the car and wake him up.
—Charis Weston (quoted in Ben Maddow, Edward Weston:
Fifty Years [1973])
Polaroid's SX-70. It won't let you stop. Suddenly you see a picture everywhere you look....
Now you press the red electric button. Whirr...whoosh...and there it is. You watch your picture come to life, growing more vivid, more detailed, until minutes later you have a print as real as life. Soon you're taking rapid-fire shots—as fast as eveiy 1.5 seconds!—as you search for new angles or make copies on the spot. The SX-70 becomes like a part of you, as it slips through life effortlessly....
—advertisement (1975)
... we regard the photograph, the picture on our wall, as the object itself (the man, landscape, and so on) depicted there.