Henry David Thoreau
[Writer and practical philosopher, b. 1817, Concord, Massachusetts, d. 1862, Concord.]
The question is not what you look at, but what you see.
Florence Thompson
[Migrant mother, b. 1904, Oklahoma, d. 1983, Scotts Valley, California.]
That’s my picture hanging all over the world, but I can’t get a penny out of it. What good’s it doing me?
(Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother at 75 years of age living in a trailer park near where the famous photograph was taken and surviving on $331.60 monthly social security.)
Hippolyte Taine
[Art critic and historian, b. 1828, Vouziers, Ardennes, France, d. 1893, Paris.]
I wish to reproduce things as they are or as they would be even if I myself did not exist.
George Tice
[Photographer, b. 1938, Newark, New Jersey, lives in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey.]
When I take a photograph, I make a wish.
Spencer Tunick
[Artist, b. 1967, Middletow., New York, lives in New York.]
I’m in between an installation artist, video artist and photographer. And when you work with nude bodies, you’re immediately called a pornographer or a fashion photographer.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
[Poet, b. 1809, Somersby, Lincolnshire, England, d. 1892, Aldwort, England.]
I can’t be anonymous by reason of your confounded photographs.
(To Julia Margaret Cameron)
David Turnley
[Photographer, b. 1955, Fort Wayne, Indiana, lives in New York.]
I do not see myself as a casual observer. I find myself as compelled by instances of joy—and by wanting to capture moments of joy, and beauty, and jubilation—as I am by more tragic moments. The human experience is one I look at very seriously, and I find myself driven to document it with genuine integrity.
Peter Turnley
[Photographer, b. 1955, Fort Wayne, Indiana, lives in New York and Paris.]
Photographers do themselves a disservice by talking too much about the equipment they use. Consequently people don’t take them seriously as creators in their own right. When people talk to writers about their work, they ask about their ideas and inspirations. When they talk to photographers, they ask about what cameras or film they use. That’s wrong—as wrong as asking a writer what pencil and laptop he uses.
