Josef Koudelka
[Photographer, b. 1938, Biskovice, Moravia, Czechoslovakia, lives in Paris.]
I never stay in one country more than three months. Why? Because I was interested in seeing, and if I stay longer I become blind.
Robert Capa (Endre Ern? Friedmann)
[Photographer, b. 1913, Budapest, Hungary, d. 1954, Thai Binh, Vietnam.]
What’s the point of getting killed if you’ve got the wrong exposure?
Duane Michals
[Photographer, b. 1932, McKeesport, Pennsylvania, lives in New York.]
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.
Vik Muniz
[Artist, b. 1961, Sao Paulo, Brazil, lives in New York.]
I have failed so much that I now stand on failure itself. It has become my work place and where I harvest my best ideas.
Joel Sternfeld
[Photographer, b. 1944, New York, lives in New York.]
Some of the people who are now manipulating photos, such as Andreas Gursky, make the argument—rightly—that the “straight” photographs of the 1940s and 50s were no such thing. Ansel Adams would slap a red filter on his lens, then spend three days burning and dodging in the dark room, making his prints. That’s a manipulation. Even the photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson, with all due respect to him, are notoriously burned and dodged.
Ben Shahn
[Photographer and artist, b. 1898, Kovno, Russia (now Kaunas, Lithuania), d. 1969, New York.]
I said, “Walker [Evans], remember your promise to show me how to photograph?” He says, “Well, it’s very easy, Ben. F9 on the sunny side of the street, F4.5 on the shady side of the street. For a twentieth of a second hold your camera steady,” and that was all. This was the only lesson I ever had.
John Baldessari
[Artist, b. 1931, National City, California, lives in Venice, California.]
Probably one of the worst things to happen to photography is that cameras have viewfinders.
Malcolm Browne
[Journalist and photographer, b. 1931, New York, d. 2012, New Hampshire.]
I had no point of view. I was concerned that [the photographs] be properly exposed, but since the subject was self-illuminated that wasn’t much of a problem.
(On his 1963 photograph of self-immolation of South Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc.)
