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Quotes by Photographer
"As soon as you forbid something, you make it extraordinarily appealing. You also bring shame in as a phenomenon."
46
"When I first toured with Wings things that were said about me were true - I did sing out of tune."
46
"The negative is the equivalent of the composer's score, and the print the performance."
46
"It is more important to click with people than to click the shutter."
45
"I have the worst ear for criticism; even when I have created a stage set I like, I always hear the woman in the back of the dress circle who says she doesn't like blue."
44
"The challenge for me has first been to see things as they are, whether a portrait, a city street, or a bouncing ball. In a word, I have tried to be objective."
44
"There are many teachers who could ruin you. Before you know it you could be a pale copy of this teacher or that teacher. You have to evolve on your own."
44
"From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour."
44
"A picture is the expression of an impression. If the beautiful were not in us, how would we ever recognize it?"
44
"To me, that is the essence of me as a photographer. It is those ideas, working with them, formulating them and eventually putting them down on paper, photographing them and then going on to the next step."
44
"I think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know. It takes no great powers or magic to reproduce somebody's face in a photograph. The magic is in seeing people in new ways."
44
"Photography to me is catching a moment which is passing, and which is true."
43
"I think hard drugs are disgusting. But I must say, I think marijuana is pretty lightweight."
43
"Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation."
43
"I didn't want to let women down. One of the stereotypes I see breaking is the idea of aging and older women not being beautiful."
42
"I should try to get some sleep as one doesn't know what tomorrow may bring."
42
"I've created a vocabulary of different styles. I draw from many different ways to take a picture. Sometimes I go back to reportage, to journalism."
42
"When I work, and in my art, I hold hands with God."
42
"I longed to arrest all beauty that came before me, and at length the longing has been satisfied."
42
"People have to find ways of explaining the work."
42
"And I think that after nearly 85 years upon this planet that I have a right after working so hard at showing the desolation and the poverty, to show something beautiful for somebody as well."
42
"At my Rolling Stones' tour, the camera was a protection. I used it in a Zen way."
41
"Lennon was very helpful. What he taught me seems completely obvious: he expected people to treat each other well."
41
"When I started working for Rolling Stone, I became very interested in journalism and thought maybe that's what I was doing, but it wasn't."
41
"A positive attitude can really make dreams come true - it did for me."
41
"A woman said to me when she first sat down, You're photographing the wrong side of my face. I said, Oh, is there one?"
41
"I think that cognitive scientists would support the view that our visual system does not directly represent what is out there in the world and that our brain constructs a lot of the imagery that we believe we are seeing."
41
"The negative is comparable to the composer's score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways."
41
"San Francisco is perhaps the most European of all American cities."
41
"I don't think there is anything wrong with white space. I don't think it's a problem to have a blank wall."
41
"Never boss people around. It's more important to click with people than to click the shutter."
41
"I will always admit immediately to what's obvious, which is that Homo sapiens is inherently erotic or inherently sensual from birth."
40
"Washington, D.C. in 1942 was not the easiest place in the world for a Negro to get along."
40
"Coming tight was boring to me, just the face... it didn't have enough information."
40
"Photography, alone of the arts, seems perfected to serve the desire humans have for a moment - this very moment - to stay."
40
"When I say I want to photograph someone, what it really means is that I'd like to know them. Anyone I know I photograph."
Want,
40
"My photographs are not planned or composed in advance, and I do not anticipate that the onlooker will share my viewpoint. However, I feel that if my photograph leaves an image on his mind, something has been accomplished."
39
"The kids really enjoy what they do. I check with them constantly to make sure that they're really happy to be there."
Kids,
39
"Passion is in all great searches and is necessary to all creative endeavors."
39
"It's a heavy weight, the camera. Now we have modern and lightweight, small plastic cameras, but in the '70s they were heavy metal."
39
"In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a Leitmotiv."
38
"There must be a reason why photographers are not very good at verbal communication. I think we get lazy."
38
"When you go to take someone's picture, the first thing they say is, what you want me to do? Everyone is very awkward."
38
"The arts equally have distinct departments, and unless photography has its own possibilities of expression, separate from those of the other arts, it is merely a process, not an art."
38
"I'm not faithful to one particular medium, and it's what I try to teach to people who work with me."
38
"In a portrait, you have room to have a point of view. The image may not be literally what's going on, but it's representative."
38
"On close inspection, this device turned out to be a funereal juke box - the result of mixing Lloyd's of London with the principle of the chewing gum dispenser."
38
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