Charles Baudelaire
[Writer, b. 1821, Paris, d. 1867, Paris.]
... a thousand hungry eyes are bending over the peepholes of the stereoscope as though they were the attic windows of the infinite. The love of pornography, which is no less deep-rooted in the natural heart of man than the love of himself, was not to let slip so fine an opportunity of satisfaction [as photography]. And do not imagine that it was only children on their way back from school who took pleasure in these follies; everyone was infatuated with them.
(1859) 
Philippe Halsman
[Photographer, b. 1906, Riga, Latvia, d. 1979, New York.]
I drifted into photography like one drifts into prostitution. First I did it to please myself, then I did it to please my friends, and eventually I did it for money.
Richard Avedon
[Photographer, b. 1923, New York, d. 2004, San Antonio, Texas.]
You can’t fuck and photograph at the same time. Taking fashion pictures of models is not a matter of arousal. It’s hard work.
Nobuyoshi Araki
[Photographer, b. 1940, Tokyo, lives in Tokyo.]
In the act of love, as in photography, there is a form of life and a kind of slow death.
Roland Barthes
[Writer, critic, and theorist, b. 1915, Cherbourg, d. 1980, Paris.]
Pornography ordinarily represents the sex-organ, it makes it into an immobile object (a fetish), to which we burn incense, like a god that doesn’t leave its niche.
Nobuyoshi Araki
[Photographer, b. 1940, Tokyo, lives in Tokyo.]
...the time when a picture is taken is like an emotion, it’s like a sexual encounter. It’s like a fuck! So, timing is very important.
Mario Sorrenti
[Photographer, b. 1971, Naples, Italy, lives in New York.]
Now I love the act of creating a new image. When everything comes together, it feels like ecstasy. It’s like a climax.
Georgia O'Keeffe
[Artist, b. 1887, Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, d. 1986, Santa Fe, New Mexico.]
We’d make love. Afterwards he would take photographs of me.
(On modeling for Alfred Stieglitz)
