Jeff Wall
[Photographer, b. 1946, Vancouver, Canada, lives in Vancouver.]
In some way [my photographs] claim to be a plausible account of, or a report on, what the events depicted are like, or were like, when they passed without being photographed.
(On his “near documentary” images.) 
David Burnett
[Photojournalist, b. 1946, Salt Lake City, Utah, lives in Arlington, Virginia.]
The satisfaction comes from working next to 500 photographers and coming away with something different.
Berenice Abbott
[Photographer, writer, teacher, b. 1898, Springfield, Ohio, d. 1991, Monson, Maine.]
I have yet to see a fine photograph which is not a good document.
Joan Fontcuberta
[Photographer, b. 1955, Barcelona, lives in Barcelona.]
I need there to be documentary photographers, because my work is meta-documentary; it is a commentary about the documentary use of photography.
Martha Rosler
[Artist, b. 1943, Brooklyn, New York, lives in New York.]
The exposé, the compassion and outrage, of documentary fueled by the dedication to reform has shaded over into combinations of exoticism, tourism, voyeurism, psychologism and metaphysics, trophy hunting—and careerism.
Imogen Cunningham
[Photographer, b. 1883, Portland, d. 1976, San Francisco.]
You know, a documentary is only interesting once in a while. If you look at a whole book of Dorothea [Lange]’s where she has row after row of people bending over and digging out carrots—that can be very tedious. And so it’s only once in a while that something happens that is worth doing.
Margaret Bourke-White
[Photographer, b. 1904, New York, d. 1971, Darien, Connecticut.]
The sights I have just seen [at Buchenwald] are so unbelievable that I don’t think I’ll believe them myself until I’ve seen the photographs...
William Eggleston
[Photographer, b. 1939, Memphis, Tennessee, lives in Memphis.]
I don’t have a burning desire to go out and document anything. It just happens when it happens. It’s not a conscious effort, nor is it a struggle. Wouldn’t do it if it was. The idea of the suffering artist has never appealed to me. Being here is suffering enough.
