Gregory Crewdson
[Photographer, b. 1962, Brooklyn, New York, lives in New Haven Connecticut.]
All my pictures are very voyeuristic, but ultimately I’m looking at what lurks in my own interior. I make photographs because I want to answer the question of what propels me to do the things that I do. But that always remains a mystery.
Glenn Ligon
[Artist, b. 1960, Bronx, New York, lives in New York.]
In some ways, I’ve always thought of my work as self-portraiture, but never straightforward representation of the self; it’s always self-portraiture filtered through forms that seem to be against portraiture…
Judy Dater
[Photographer, b. 1941, Hollywood, lives in San Francisco.]
Portraits I’ve done in the past I’ve always thought were a reflection of me.
Michael Lesy
[Writer and artist, b. 1945, Shaker Heights, Ohio, lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.]
Look, I really do not care about you. What I care about is the worlds that you bear witness to. You are nothing more than a dog with a video camera strapped on its back. As you walk the streets looking for a place to mate or piss or eat, the camera is on and we will see the world because of you... You carry the camera and we enjoy the world.
(On images as autobiography)
Georgia O'Keeffe
[Artist, b. 1887, Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, d. 1986, Santa Fe, New Mexico.]
I never knew [Alfred Stieglitz] to make a trip anywhere to photograph. His eye was in him, and he used it on anything that was nearby. Maybe that way he was always photographing himself.
Alec Soth
[Photographer, b. 1969, Minneapolis, Minnesota, lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.]
I’ve never been comfortable photographing people I know, myself included. I guess I prefer the mystery of strangers.
Cindy Sherman
[Artist, b. 1954, Glen Ridge, New Jersey, lives in New York.]
When I prepare each character I have to consider what I’m working against; that people are going to look under the make-up and wigs for that common denominator, the recognizable. I’m trying to make people recognize something of themselves rather than me.
Ulay (Frank Uwe Laysiepen)
[Performance artist, b. 1943, Solingen, Germany, lives in Amsterdam.]
[A Polaroid camera] is like a delayed mirror. You take a picture, you wait three minutes and look again and again: is it me?
