Duane Michals
[Photographer, b. 1932, McKeesport, Pennsylvania, lives in New York.]
Photographers show you what a sunset looks like, they show you what a moonrise over Hernandez looks like, they show you women’s breasts or empty car lots, but they don’t play with your mind. I’m not saying all photographers should play with your mind, but it’s an option they don’t exercise. I think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know.
I feel that you’re either defined by the medium or you redefine the medium.
Because of my involvement with my photographs, it is difficult for me to really see them objectively. Talking about them is like talking about myself. The only real idea that I have about them is that they are essentially snapshots. For snapshots, I feel, often have an inherent simplicity and directness that I find beautiful. The roots of my photography are in this tradition.
I don’t believe in the eyes, I believe in the mind... I’m not interested in what things look like.
Photographers are always photographing reality but they never question the nature of the thing itself. I’m not interested in what things look like; I’m much more interested in what things feel like. It’s like reading a hundred love stories or falling in love; I’d much rather fall in love.
A photograph is not worth a thousand words. Everything is, after all, a thought.
The photographic act is not that difficult, but photographers tend to make a production out of it. A client is paying $500 or a $1,000, so they want to make him feel he’s getting his money’s worth.
Everything is subject for photography, especially the difficult things of our lives: anxiety, childhood hurts, lust, nightmares. The things that cannot be seen are the most significant. They cannot be photographed, only suggested.
