Ed Ruscha
[Artist, b. 1937, Omaha, Nebraska, lives in Los Angeles.]
Unfortunately, there was no Jackson Pollock of the camera.
Nan Goldin
[Photographer, b. 1953, Washington, D.C., lives in New York and Paris.]
For me it is not a detachment to take a picture. It’s a way of touching somebody—it’s a caress.... I think that you can actually give people access to their own soul.
Dorothy Parker
[Writer, b. 1893, West End, New Jersey, d. 1967, New York.]
When your bank account is so overdrawn that it is positively photographic, steps must be taken.
Edmundo Desnoes
[Writer, b. 1930, Havana, Cuba, lives in New York.]
Photographs offer more than decisive moments. They are not alone, they add and subtract and change with time. They are metaphors for our lives... Even a static photograph can change in the blink of a day or decade.
Ishiuchi Miyako
[Photographer, b. 1947, Gunma Prefecture, Japan, lives in Tokyo.]
…I have always thought that the darkroom is such a sexual place. Its smell is so strong. And if you do it with bare hands, it’s like you’re having sex. Photography has that quality; it engages the five senses. It possesses something like sexuality.
Josef Koudelka
[Photographer, b. 1938, Biskovice, Moravia, Czechoslovakia, lives in Paris.]
If I am dissatisfied, it’s simply because good photos are few and far between. A good photo is a miracle.
Robert Doisneau
[Photographer, b. 1912, Gentilly, Val-de-Marne, France, d. 1994, Montrouge, France.]
You know, they always say that the photographer is “a hunter of images.” That is a flattering image, the idea of a hunter, it’s virile, acquired power. Actually though, it isn’t that. We are really fishermen with hooks and lines.
Sophia Loren (Sofia Villani Scicolone)
[Actress, b. 1934, Rome, lives in Geneva.]
[William] Klein has eyes like a knife. He is ruthless and outrageous but never mean—he is tender and funny and violent—and, I’m sure, really in love with our crazy Rome.
