Martha Rosler
[Artist, b. 1943, Brooklyn, New York, lives in New York.]
I’ve written about documentaries as a dead form. But without some reference to the real, there’s no place of departure.
D. A. Pennebaker
[Documentary Filmmaker, b. 1925, Evanston, Illinois, lives in Sag Harbor, New York.]
You can’t point a camera at someone and find out what’s in their head. But it does the next best thing—it lets you speculate.
Roy Stryker
[Economist, photographer, and administrator, b. 1893, Great Bend, Kansas, d. 1975, Grand Junction, Colorado.]
Let’s begin to cover the main street of America... just to see what the heck occurs on it.
Roland Barthes
[Writer, critic, and theorist, b. 1915, Cherbourg, d. 1980, Paris.]
The photograph touches me if I withdraw it from its usual blah-blah: “Technique,” “Reality,” “Reportage,” “Art,” etc.: to say nothing, to shut my eyes, to allow the detail to arise of its own accord into affective consciousness.
Mark Klett
[Photographer, b. 1952, Albany, New York, lives in Tempe, Arizona.]
In this world, the spots where the present seems to overlap the past are the most important. These are the points when one becomes aware that the direction of the world can change.
W. Eugene Smith
[Photographer, b. 1918, Wichita, Kansas, d. 1978, Tucson, Arizona.]
I think the only thing wrong with the word “documentary” is that it can give some people the idea that you can make absolutely dull pictures of the ingredients of something instead of the heart of something.
Allan Sekula
[Photographer, writer, and theorist, b. 1951, Erie, Pennsylvania, d. 2013, Los Angeles.]
The only “objective” truth that photographs offer is the assertion that somebody or something... was somewhere and took a picture. Everything else, everything beyond the imprinting of a trace, is up for grabs.
Lee Friedlander
[Photographer, b. 1934, Aberdeen, Washington, lives in New York.]
Photography doesn’t just give you the tree, it gives you every leaf on the tree.
