Donna Ferrato
[Photographer, b. 1949, Waltham, Massachusetts, lives in New York.]
What makes me really happy is to get deep into the muck and juicy good stuff of people’s lives.
Philippe Halsman
[Photographer, b. 1906, Riga, Latvia, d. 1979, New York.]
A true portrait should, today and a hundred years from today, be the testimony of how this person looked and what kind of human being he was.
Cindy Sherman
[Artist, b. 1954, Glen Ridge, New Jersey, lives in New York.]
The role-playing was intended to make people become aware of how stupid roles are, a lot of roles, but it’s not all that serious, perhaps that’s more the moral of it, not to take anything too seriously.
Edmundo Desnoes
[Writer, b. 1930, Havana, Cuba, lives in New York.]
The Latin American photographer has the possibility, and the means, for naming the things of our world, for demonstrating that there is another kind of beauty, that the faces of the First World are not the only ones. These Indian, black, plundered white and mestizo faces are the first element defining the demographic content of our photography.
Cindy Sherman
[Artist, b. 1954, Glen Ridge, New Jersey, lives in New York.]
I have this enormous fear of being misinterpreted, of people thinking that the photographs are about me, that I’m really vain and narcissistic. Then sometimes I wonder how it is I’m fooling so many people. I’m doing one of the most stupid things in the world which I can’t even explain, dressing up like a child and posing in front of a camera trying to make beautiful pictures. And people seem to fall for it.
Duane Michals
[Photographer, b. 1932, McKeesport, Pennsylvania, lives in New York.]
Most portraits are lies. People are rarely what they appear to be, especially in front of a camera. You might know me your entire lifetime and never reveal yourself to me. To interpret wrinkles as character is insult not insight.
Mariko Mori
[Artist and photographer, b. 1967, Tokyo, Japan, lives in New York.]
... my father loved to take photographs of me. When I was nine I made my own costumes for a school play and I experienced becoming different characters. I loved to document myself as different images and I think my work evolved after this favorite activity. The photographs I exhibited in New York juxtaposed reality and fantasy. There was everyday life and fantasy was dismantling that reality.
Edward Weston
[Photographer, b. 1886, Highland Park, Illinois, d. 1958, Wildcat Hill, California.]
One does not think during creative work, any more than one thinks when driving a car. But one has a background of years—learning, unlearning, success, failure, dreaming, thinking, experience, all this—then the moment of creation, the focusing of all into the moment. So I can make “without thought,” fifteen carefully considered negatives, one every fifteen minutes, given material with as many possibilities. But there is all the eyes have seen in this life to influence me.
