Wright Morris
[Writer and photographer, b. 1910, Central City, Nebraska, d. 1998, Mill Valley, California.]

 All, or most, photographs have many faces. The face desired is revealed by the caption. 

Duane Michals
[Photographer, b. 1932, McKeesport, Pennsylvania, lives in New York.]

 I arrived at writing [on photographs] from a frustration with the medium. I was frustrated by the silence of the still photograph. 

Susan Sontag
[Writer, theorist, and critic, b. 1933, New York, d. 2004, New York.]

 Standing alone, photographs promise an understanding they cannot deliver. In the company of words, they take on meaning, but they slough off one meaning and take on another with alarming ease. 

James Agee
[Writer, b. 1909, Knoxville, Tennessee, d. 1955, New York.]

 If I could do it, I’d do no writing at all here. It would all be photographs. (In the 1941 book with photographs by Walker Evans Let Us Now Praise Famous Men) 

Victor Burgin
[Artist and writer, b. 1941, Sheffield, England, lives in London.]

 Even the uncaptioned “art” photograph is invaded by language in the very moment it is looked at: in memory, in association, snatches of words and images continually intermingle and exchange one for the other. 

Lewis Hine
[Photographer, writer, and reformer, b. 1874, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, d. 1940, New York.]

 If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug a camera. 

Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)
[Writer, b. 1835, Hannibal, Missouri, d. 1910, Redding, Connecticut.]

 Ten thousand pulpits and ten thousand presses are saying the good word for me all the time… Then that trivial little kodak, that a child can carry in its pocket, gets up, uttering never a word, and knocks them dumb! 

David Wojnarowicz
[Artist and activist, b. 1954, Redbank, New Jersey, d. 1990, New York.]

 To me, photographs are like words and I generally will place many photographs together or print them one inside the other in order to construct a free-floating sentence that speaks about the world I witness. 
quotes 17-24 of 142
first page previous page page 3 of 18 next page last page
display quotes