Alphonse Bertillon
[Police officer, biometrics researcher, “inventor” of the criminal mug shot, b. 1853, Paris, d. 1914, Münsterlingen, Switzerland.]
We can only see what we are looking for and we look for what is already in our minds.
Manuel Álvarez Bravo
[Photographer, b. 1902, Mexico City, d. 2002, Mexico City.]
A photographer’s main instrument is his eyes. Strange as it may seem, many photographers choose to use the eyes of another photographer, past or present, instead of their own. Those photographers are blind.
Joel Meyerowitz
[Photographer, b. 1938, New York, lives in New York.]
It’s important when photographing to see different things simultaneously. Because there is so little time in the photographic moment, it must be expanded by consciousness to let in as much as can be contained.
Alexey Brodovitch
[Graphic designer and art director, b. 1898, Ogolitchi, Russia, d. 1971, Le Thor, France.]
When you look into your camera, if you see an image you have ever seen before, don’t click the shutter.
Graciela Iturbide
[Photographer, b. 1942, Mexico City, lives in Coyoacán, Mexico.]
Wherever we go we want to find the theme we carry inside ourselves.
Wynn Bullock
[Photographer, b. 1902, Chicago, Illinois, d. 1975, Monterey, California.]
Mysteries lie all around us, even in the most familiar things, waiting only to be perceived.
Sally Mann
[Photographer, b. 1951, Lexington, Virginia, lives in Lexington.]
Photographs open doors into the past, but they also allow a look into the future.
Max Kozloff
[Critic, editor, and photographer, b. 1933, Chicago, Illinois, lives in New York.]
We perceive and interpret the outer world through a set of incredibly fine internal receptors. But we are incapable, by ourselves, of grasping or tweezing out any permanent, sharable figment of it. Practically speaking, we ritually verify what is there, and are disposed to call it reality. But, with photographs, we have concrete proof that we have not been hallucinating all our lives.
