Norman Parkinson
[Photographer, b. 1913, London, d. 1990, Singapore.]
The only thing that gets in the way of a really good photograph is the camera.
Gueorgui Pinkhassov
[Photographer, b. 1952, Moscow, lives in Paris.]
Don’t be afraid to take bad pictures, because good pictures are the mistakes of bad pictures.
Platon (Platon Rivellis)
[Photographer, b. 1968, London, lives in New York.]
Mr. President, can you show me the love?
(Direction to Bill Clinton resulting an infamous low-angled “crotch-shot” Esquire magazine cover.)
Anders Petersen
[Photographer, b. 1944, Solna, Sweden, lives in Stockholm.]
There is not a big difference between life and taking pictures... You’re in the middle of life, you’re living, making love, eating, sleeping—and photography is part of it. And I don’t say this because I’m being romantic. I say this because that’s just the way it happens to be.
Max Pam
[Photographer, b. 1949, Melbourne, Australia, lives in Perth, Australia.]
[My photography teacher] gave me the Mexican Day Books of Edward Weston and just blew me away with this work. The fact that you could be this fabulous visual artist, with all this milieu of people like Diego Rivera and you could sleep with these gorgeous, amazing women, that you could live that life—that photography could deliver you that life.
Irving Penn
[Photographer, b. 1917, Plainfield, New Jersey, d. 2009, New York.]
I myself have always stood in the awe of the camera. I recognize it for the instrument it is, part Stradivarius, part scalpel.
Sean Penn
[Actor, b. 1960, Burbank, California, lives in Los Angeles.]
I still think photographers should be lashed out at. They should be put in a cage where you can poke them with a stick for a quarter. But not in a hostile way, just for giggles. They really are on the attack against mankind; it’s a disease. They should be helped somewhere. But I’d still like to poke them with a stick.
Joseph Pulitzer
[Editor, publisher and businessman, b. 1847, Makó, Hungary, d. 1911, Charleston, South Carolina.]
They call me the father of illustrated journalism. What folly! I never thought any such thing. I had a small newspaper, which had been dead for years, and I was trying in every way to build up its circulation. What could I use for bait? A picture, of course.
