Harold Evans
[Writer and editor, b. 1928, Manchester, England, lives in New York.]
People were murdered for the camera; and some photographers and a television camera crew departed without taking a picture in the hope that in the absence of cameramen acts might not be committed. Others felt that the mob was beyond appeal to mercy. They stayed and won Pulitzer Prizes. Were they right?
Henry Peach Robinson
[Photographer, b. 1830, Ludlow, Shropshire, England, d. 1901, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England.]
It was soon evident in my lodgings that I had become a dangerous lunatic, and there would be nothing left to destroy if strong measures were not taken. So I was turned out of the house, but it was only into the garden, where I was allowed to build a small darkroom of oilcloth.
Hippolyte Bayard
[Photographer, b. 1801, Breteuil-sur-Noye, France, d. 1887, Nemours, France.]
The corpse which you see here is that of M. Bayard, inventor of the process that has just been shown to you. As far as I know this indefatigable experimenter has been occupied for about three years with his discovery. The Government, which has been only too generous to Monsieur Daguerre, has said it can do nothing for Monsieur Bayard, and the poor wretch has drowned himself. Oh the vagaries of human life...!
(1840, written on his self-portrait as a drowned man made after he was beaten to the announcement of the discovery of photography by Louis-Jacques Mandé Daguerre.)
William J. T. Mitchell
[Writer, theorist, and architect, b. 1944, Melbourne, Australia, lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.]
...the fear of the image, the anxiety that the “power of images” may finally destroy even their creators and manipulators, is as old as image-making itself.
Dorothea Lange
[Photographer, b. 1895, Hoboken, New Jersey, d. 1965, San Francisco.]
For better or worse, the destiny of the photographer is bound up with the destinies of a machine. In this alliance is presented a very special problem. Ours is a time of the machine, and ours is a need to know that the machine can be put to creative human effort. If it is not, the machine can destroy us. It is within the power of the photographer to help prohibit destruction, and help make the machine an agent more of good than evil.
Ansel Adams
[Photographer, b. 1902, San Francisco, d. 1984, Carmel, California.]
One danger confronts the development of the photo-document—the danger of it becoming a tool of obvious propaganda. All art is delicate propaganda of some sort, but I do not feel that direct propaganda succeeds except in the injury to the aesthetic potentials.
Federico Fellini
[Filmmaker, b. 1920, Rimini, Italy, d. 1993, Rome.]
There is no such thing as a good paparazzo. A good paparazzo, that’s a paparazzo who has had his camera broken. In fact, they are bandits, thieves of photography.
(Statement after photographs were published showing Jackie Onassis sunbathing nude.)
Martha Rosler
[Artist, b. 1943, Brooklyn, New York, lives in New York.]
Women war photographers had to fight on two fronts: the bombs, and the men.
