Philip K. Dick
[Writer, b. 1928, Chicago, Illinois, d. 1982, Santa Ana, California.]
When do I see a photograph, when a reflection?
Emmet Gowin
[Photographer, b. 1941, Danville, Virginia, lives in Princeton, New Jersey.]
I feel that whatever picture an artist makes it is in part a picture of himself—a matter of identity.
Willy Ronis
[Photographer, b. 1910, Montmartre, Paris, d. 2009, Paris.]
I have never sought the unexpected, the novelty, the extraordinary, but rather what is most typical of our daily life... I go out to find people who resemble me, and the mirror which these images offer them is the same as that in which I see myself.
Terry Richardson
[Photographer, b. 1965, New York, lives in New York.]
I used to always want to shoot nudes, but when I’d say to models, “Hey, do you want to do this?" they’d be like, “No way, why don’t you get naked?”... So then I got this idea that since I’d always got worked up and would, like, pop a boner when I was shooting women that maybe they’d get more into it if I let them start shooting me. So now I’ve got all of these rolls of myself where I’m being ordered around by women while they take nudes of me...
Samuel Butler
[Writer, b. 1835, Langar Rectory, Nottinghamshire, England, d. 1902, London.]
Count Gattinara di Zubiena sent me this morning what in the innocence of his heart he believes to be a photograph of himself—a smooth, sleek thing like a dummy, and with nothing in it that can conceivably remind me of himself. He did not know that in reality he was sending me a portrait of the photographer, and of his ideas as to what a young Italian Count should look like.
Abbas (Abbas Attar)
[Photographer, b. 1944, Iran, d. 2018, Paris.]
Now I don’t just make stories about what’s happening. I’m making stories about my way of seeing what’s happening.
Cindy Sherman
[Artist, b. 1954, Glen Ridge, New Jersey, lives in New York.]
I have this enormous fear of being misinterpreted, of people thinking that the photographs are about me, that I’m really vain and narcissistic. Then sometimes I wonder how it is I’m fooling so many people. I’m doing one of the most stupid things in the world which I can’t even explain, dressing up like a child and posing in front of a camera trying to make beautiful pictures. And people seem to fall for it.
The role-playing was intended to make people become aware of how stupid roles are, a lot of roles, but it’s not all that serious, perhaps that’s more the moral of it, not to take anything too seriously.
