Susan Sontag
[Writer, theorist, and critic, b. 1933, New York, d. 2004, New York.]

 Photography is a kind of overstatement, a heroic copulation with the material world. 

Edward Weston
[Photographer, b. 1886, Highland Park, Illinois, d. 1958, Wildcat Hill, California.]

 By all means tell your Board that pubic hair has definitely been part of my development as an artist, tell them it has been the most important part, that I like it black, brown, red or golden, curly or straight, all sizes and shapes. (To Museum of Modern Art curator Beaumont Newhall, after being told the museum was reluctant to show nudes revealing pubic hair.) 

Robert Mapplethorpe
[Photographer, b. 1946, Floral Park, Long Island, d. 1989, Boston, Massachusetts.]

 I don’t think that there’s that much difference between a photograph of a fist up someone’s ass and a photograph of carnations in a bowl. 

Charis Wilson
[Model, b. 1914, San Francisco, d. 2009, Santa Cruz, California.]

 Usually when people got to know us a little, someone would look very seriously and say, “Would you mind telling me how— what it was that brought you two together?” And Edward [Weston] would give an anticipatory smirk and say, “Sex.” 

Helmut Newton
[Photographer, b. 1920, Berlin, d. 2004, Los Angeles.]

 Of course I love women. Or else I wouldn’t have spent so much time photographing them and I would be homosexual. 

Chuck Close
[Artist, b. 1940, Monroe, Washington, lives in New York.]

 No one makes a nude if they’re not going to get turned on, and if they claim that they are making it for other reasons it’s an absolute lie. 

Robert Mapplethorpe
[Photographer, b. 1946, Floral Park, Long Island, d. 1989, Boston, Massachusetts.]

 A cock is more problematic [than flowers] when you’re photographing, especially if you want it erect. You can’t jiggle the lights as much, and it’s hard to refine the photograph as much as you’d like... 

Daido Moriyama
[Photographer, b. 1938, Ikeda-cho, Osaka, Japan, lives in Tokyo.]

 I have always felt that the world is an erotic place... For me cities are enormous bodies of people’s desires. And as I search for my own desires within them, I slice into time, seeing the moment. That’s the kind of camera work I like. 
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