Philip Jones Griffiths
[Photojournalist, b. 1936, Rhuddian, Wales, d. 2008, London.]

 Content alone is propaganda; form alone is wallpaper. 

Roberta McGrath
[Critic, lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.]

 “Taking” a photograph is a way of making sense of the world. It imposes and order, a unity on the world which is lacking. To take a photograph is to exercise an illusory control, a mastery which is characteristic of voyeurism. But the sexual connotations of the verb are also obvious: the slang for carnal knowledge. It implies a physical penetration of the other while the photograph is a penetration of the space of the other. 

Susie Bright
[Writer, feminist, and activist, b. 1958, Arlington, Virginia, lives in Santa Cruz, California.]

 Seeing lesbian photography is just the tip of my radicalized clitoris. I have modeled for, commissioned, published, and fought for these pictures, and answered threats against them. I’ve seen the feminist movement bring these pictures to life, and I’ve seen that same movement try to suppress the liberating results. 

Gordon Parks
[Photographer and filmmaker, b. 1912, Fort Scott, Kansas, d. 2006, New York.]

 I picked up a camera because it was my choice of weapon against what I hated most about the universe: racism, intolerance, poverty. I could have just as easily picked up a knife or gun, like many of my childhood friends did… 

Lucy Lippard
[Critic and writer, b. 1936, New York, lives in Galisteo, New Mexico.]

 The camera was another weapon in the wars of domination. 

James Nachtwey
[Photographer, b. 1948, Syracuse, New York, lives in New York.]

 I used to call myself a war photographer. Now I consider myself as an antiwar photographer. 

Danny Lyon
[Photographer, b. 1942, New York, lives in Ulster County, New York.]

 The sign at the entrance to my gym locker room says, “no cell phones please, cell phones are cameras.” They are not. A camera is a Nikon or a Leica or Rolleiflex, and when you strike someone with one, they know they have been hit with something substantial. 

George
[Artist, b. 1942, Devon, England, lives in London.]

 Our reason for making pictures is to change people and not to congratulate them on being how they are. 
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