Jerry Uelsmann
[Photographer, b. 1934, Detroit, Michigan, lives in Gainesville, Florida.]

 Ultimately, my hope is to amaze myself. The anticipation of discovering new possibilities becomes my greatest joy. 

Max Beckman
[Artist, b. 1884, Leipzig, Germany, d. 1950, New York.]

 We will enjoy ourselves with the forms that are given us: a human face, a hand, the breast of a woman or the body of a man, a glad or sorrowful expression, the infinite seas, the wild rocks, the melancholy language of the black trees in the snow, the wild strength of spring flowers and the heavy lethargy of a hot summer day when Pan, our old friend, sleeps and the ghosts of midday whisper. This alone is enough to make us forget the grief of the world, or to give it form. 

Nell Dorr
[Photographer, b. 1895, Cleveland, Ohio, d. 1988, Washington, Connecticut.]

 Without the one thing, beauty, I think I could not endure to live. With it, I can endure all. I find it equally in joy and in sorrow. In the greatest of each, in birth and in death, I find an almost unbearable beauty... 

Ishiuchi Miyako
[Photographer, b. 1947, Gunma Prefecture, Japan, lives in Tokyo.]

 I cannot stop [taking photographs of scars] because they are so much like a photograph… They are visible events, recorded in the past. Both the scars and the photographs are the manifestation of sorrow for the many things which cannot be retrieved... 

Anaïs Nin
[Writer, b. 1903, Neuilly, France, d. 1977, Los Angeles.]

 I will not be just a tourist in the world of images, just watching images passing by which I cannot live in, make love to, possess as permanent sources of joy and ecstasy. 

Lucas Samaras
[Artist, b. 1936, Kastoria, Greece, lives in New York.]

 You don’t have to say that nature is aware of your existence, that God knows you are here and you are suffering or having joy. The camera gives you proof that you have lived at least once. 

Saul Leiter
[Photographer, b. 1923, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, d. 2013, New York.]

 Some photographers think that by taking pictures of human misery, they are addressing a serious problem. I do not think that misery is more profound than happiness. 

W.H. Auden
[Poet and writer, b. 1907, York, North Yorkshire, England, d. 1973, Vienna, Austria.]

 The camera may do justice to laughter, but must degrade sorrow. 
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