Matthew Brady
[Photographer, b. 1823, Warren County, New York, d. 1896, New York.]
A spirit in my feet said “go,” and I went.
(On why he photographed the Civil War.) 
The camera is the eye of history.
Results are uncertain even among the more experienced photographers.
No one will ever know what I went through to secure those negatives. The world can never appreciate it. It changed the whole course of my life.
(Written at the end of his life, penniless and bitter.)
I had great trouble in making a natural picture. When I got him before the camera I asked if I might arrange his collar, and with that he began to pull it up. “Ah,” said Lincoln, “I see you want to shorten my neck.” “That’s just it,” I answered, and we both laughed.
