Nobuyoshi Araki
[Photographer, b. 1940, Tokyo, lives in Tokyo.]
Happiness always contains a mixture of something like unhappiness. When I photograph unhappiness I only capture unhappiness, but when I photograph happiness, life, death, and everything else comes through. Unhappiness seems grave and heavy; happiness is light, but happiness has its own heaviness, a looming sense of death.
Christian Boltanski
[Artist, b. 1944, Paris, lives in Paris.]
We all die twice—once when we actually die and once when no one on earth recognizes our photograph.
James Nachtwey
[Photographer, b. 1948, Syracuse, New York, lives in New York.]
If I can upset people, if I can ruin their day, then I have done my job.
Inge Morath
[Photographer, b. 1923, Graz, Austria, d. 2002, New York.]
Pressing the shutter has remained a moment of joyful recognition, comparable to the delight of a child balancing on tiptoe and suddenly, with a small cry of delight, stretching out a hand toward a desired object.
Donald McCullin
[Photographer, b. 1935, Finsbury Park, London, lives in Somerset, England.]
There is no doubt that my photographs have a very strong religious overtone, they are like twentieth century icons. When human beings are suffering, they tend to look up, as if hoping for salvation. And that’s when I press the button.
Malick Sidibé
[Photographer, b. 1935, Soloba, Mali, d. 2016, Bamako, Mali.]
I wanted to be the photographer of happiness.
André Kertész
[Photographer, b. 1894, Budapest, Hungary, d. 1985, New York.]
This is a photograph of the apartment taken while my wife was in the hospital. I wanted the apartment to be painted for her when she came back, but she never came back.
(Photo caption)
Robert Doisneau
[Photographer, b. 1912, Gentilly, Val-de-Marne, France, d. 1994, Montrouge, France.]
A memory from my youth comes back to me. You go into the woods on a bike, with a girl. There is the smell of heather, you can hear the wind in the fir trees, you don't dare tell her about your love, but you feel happy, as if you were floating above the ground. Then you look at the clouds beyond the trees and they are fleeting. And you know that within an hour you’ll have to go home, that tomorrow will be a working day. You wish you could stop that moment forever, but you can’t, it is bound to end. So you take a photo, as if to challenge time.
