Susan Sontag
[Writer, theorist, and critic, b. 1933, New York, d. 2004, New York.]
The photographer is supertourist, an extension of the anthropologist, visiting natives and bringing back news of their exotic doings and strange gear. The photographer is always trying to colonize new experiences, to find new ways of looking at familiar subjects—to fight against boredom. For boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.
Harold Edgerton
[Scientist, inventor, and photographer, b. 1903, Fremont, Nebraska, d. 1990, Cambridge, Massachusetts.]
In many ways, unexpected results are what have most inspired my photography.
Clarence John Laughlin
[Photographer, b. 1905, Lake Charles, Louisiana, d. 1985, New Orleans, Louisiana.]
... dissatisfaction with one’s self and dissatisfaction with the world—is necessary—it is one of the prime things that keeps the artist going on—that drives him—happiness, as such, must come in between times, as best it can.
Edward Weston
[Photographer, b. 1886, Highland Park, Illinois, d. 1958, Wildcat Hill, California.]
My true program is summed up in one word: life. I expect to photograph anything suggested by that word which appeals to me.
Alexander Gardner
[Photographer, b. 1821, Paisley, Scotland, d. 1882, Washington, D.C.]
Such a picture [
A Harvest of Death, Gettysburg battlefield, July, 1863] conveys a useful moral: It shows the blank horror and reality of war, in opposition to the pageantry. Here are the dreadful details! Let them aid in preventing such another calamity falling upon the nation.
(1866)
Gregory Crewdson
[Photographer, b. 1962, Brooklyn, New York, lives in New Haven Connecticut.]
Originally, one of the reasons I was drawn to photography, as opposed to painting or sculpture or installation, is that of all the arts it is the most democratic, in so far as it’s instantly readable and accessible to our culture. Photography is how we move information back and forth.
Eliot Porter
[Photographer, b. 1901, Winnetka, Illinois, d. 1990, Santa Fe, New Mexico.]
I do not photograph for ulterior purposes. I photograph for the thing itself—for the photograph—without consideration of how it may be used.
Ralph Steiner
[Photographer, b. 1899, Cleveland, Ohio, d. 1986, Hanover, New Hampshire.]
These days I think the composers of music influence me more than any photographers or visual creators. I see something exciting or lovely and think to myself: “If Papa Haydn or Wolfgang Amadeus or the red-headed Vivaldi were here with a camera, they’d snap a picture of what’s in front of me.” So I take the picture for them.
