James Nachtwey
[Photographer, b. 1948, Syracuse, New York, lives in New York.]
I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.
Martin Luther King
[Civil rights leader, religious leader, b. 1929, Atlanta, Georgia, d. 1968, Memphis, Tennessee.]
I’m not being cold blooded about it, but it is so much more important for you to take a picture of us getting beaten up than for you to be another person joining in the fray.
(To photographer Flip Schulke at a civil rights march.)
Frederick Sommer
[Photographer, b. 1905, Angri, Italy, d. 1999, Prescott, Arizona.]
The world of art and the world of science are interested in evidence and verification.
Glenn Ligon
[Artist, b. 1960, Bronx, New York, lives in New York.]
Even with a million cameras, there’s no such thing—for certain groups of citizens—as evidence.
Sabrina Harman
[U.S. military guard at Abu Ghraib Prison, Iraq, b. 1978, Lorton, Virginia, lives in Virginia.]
If I come up to you and I’m like, “Hey this is going on,” you probably wouldn’t believe me unless I had something to show you. So if I say “Hey this is going on. Look, I have proof,” you can’t deny it, I guess.
(On why she took the infamous photos of abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib Prison, Iraq)
Nan Goldin
[Photographer, b. 1953, Washington, D.C., lives in New York and Paris.]
I became a photographer to make a record that no one could revise, and now anyone can revise it.
Joan Fontcuberta
[Photographer, b. 1955, Barcelona, lives in Barcelona.]
The heart [of my work], the quintessential, remains the questioning of photographic truth. Be careful, be critical, doubt, and filter the information you receive.
Clarence John Laughlin
[Photographer, b. 1905, Lake Charles, Louisiana, d. 1985, New Orleans, Louisiana.]
Let us see as steadily and completely as possible the realities of our age: the wasted lives, the scattered and misused resources (human and material), the steel magic of the misdirected machinery, the mad clockwork tragedy of it all.
