Peter Henry Emerson
[Writer and photographer, b. 1856, LaPalma, Cuba, d. 1936, Falmouth, Cornwall, England.]

 It must not be forgotten that water-colour drawing and etching have both been despised in their time by artists, dealers, and the public, but they have lived to conquer for themselves places of honour. The promising boy, photography, is but fifty years old. What prophet will venture to cast his horoscope for the year 2000? (1889) 
 I have, I regret it deeply, compared photographs to great works of art and photographers to great artists. I was rash and thoughtless and my punishment is having to acknowledge it now… (1891, in a recantation of his earlier advocacy of photography.) 
 “A photograph,” it has been said, “shows the art of nature rather that the art of the artist.” This is mere nonsense, as the same remark might by applied equally to all the fine arts. Nature does not jump into the camera, focus itself, expose itself, develop itself, and print itself. (1889) 
 Many photographers think they are photographing nature when they are only caricaturing her. 
 No haphazard work, but complete control, so that we can mould the picture according to our will. (Credo) 
 Do not call yourself an “artist photographer” and make “artist painters” and “artist sculptors” laugh; call yourself a photographer and wait for artists to call you brother. 
 ... if twenty photographers were sent to a district of limited area, and told to take a given composition, the result would be twenty different renderings. Photographs of any quality have individuality as much as any other works of art. (1889) 
 The photographer does not make his picture—a machine does it all for him. (1891, in a recantation of his earlier advocacy of photography as art.) 
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