Berenice Abbott
[Photographer, writer, teacher, b. 1898, Springfield, Ohio, d. 1991, Monson, Maine.]
Photography can never grow up if it imitates some other medium. It has to walk alone; it has to be itself.
The photographer’s punctillo is his recognition of the now—to see it so clearly that he looks through it to the past and senses the future. This is a big order and demands wisdom as well as understanding of one’s time.
The world today has been conditioned, overwhelmingly, to visualize. The picture has almost replaced the word as a means of communication.
Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past.
Unless they do their share of growing up to their responsibilities the photographer can languish or take up knitting.
What the human eye observes casually and incuriously, the eye of the camera... notes with relentless fidelity.
