Mario Giacomelli
[Photographer, b. 1925, Senigallia, Italy, d. 2000, Senigallia.]
Of course [photography] cannot create, nor express all we want to express. But it can be a witness of our passage on earth, like a notebook.
Lola Alvarez Bravo
[Photographer, b. 1907, Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco, Mexico, d. 1993, Mexico City.]
I was the only woman fooling around with a camera in the streets and all the reporters laughed at me. So I became a fighter.
Walker Evans
[Photographer, b. 1903, St. Louis, Missouri, d. 1975, New Haven, Connecticut.]
The secret of photography is, the camera takes on the character and personality of the handler.
Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)
[Writer, b. 1835, Hannibal, Missouri, d. 1910, Redding, Connecticut.]
The sun never looks through a photographic instrument that does not print a lie. The piece of glass it prints is well named a “negative”—a contradiction—a misrepresentation—a falsehood. I speak feelingly of this matter, because by turns the instrument has represented me to be a lunatic, A Solomon, a missionary, a burglar and an abject idiot.
(1866)
Brassaï (Gyula Halász)
[Photographer, b. 1889, Brassó, Transylvania, Hungary (now Romania), d. 1984, Eze, Alpes-Maritimes, France.]
In photography you can never express yourself directly, only through optics, the physical and chemical process. It is this sort of submission to the object and abnegation of self that is exactly what pleases me about photography.
Chuck Close
[Artist, b. 1940, Monroe, Washington, lives in New York.]
She didn’t seem to know how to be just Cindy—was quite uncomfortable with the idea. Finally for the profile, I said, “Imagine you’re the Queen of England on a postage stamp.”
(On photographing Cindy Sherman)
Julia Margaret Cameron
[Photographer, b. 1815, Calcutta, India, d. 1879, Kalutara, Ceylon.]
When I have had such men before my camera my whole soul has endeavored to do its duty towards them in recording faithfully the greatness of the inner as well as the features of the outer man. The photograph thus taken has been almost the embodiment of a prayer.
Joel-Peter Witkin
[Photographer, b. 1939, Brooklyn, New York, lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.]
People who hate what I make hate me, too. They must think I am a demon or some kind of evil sorcerer. Those who understand what I do appreciate the determination, love, and courage it takes to find wonder and beauty in people who are considered by society to be damaged, unclean, dysfunctional, or wretched.
