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Aaron Siskind

Aaron Siskind Quotes

Photographer

Aaron Siskind was a renowned American photographer, born on December 4, 1903, and passed away on February 8, 1991. His work is known for its unique perspective and profound understanding of photographic art, which had a significant impact on the development of 20th-century photography.

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Famous Aaron Siskind Quotes

“I may be wrong, but the essential illustrative nature of most documentary photography, and the worship of the object per se, in our best nature photography, is not enough to satisfy the man of today, compounded as he is of Christ, Freud, and Marx.”

Men May Enough Today Christ Objects He Man Essentials Photography Worship Photographer Documentaries Best Nature Documentary Photography

Author:Aaron Siskind

“Almost inevitably there are tensions in the picture, tensions between the outside world and the inside world. For me, a successful picture resolves these tensions without eliminating them.”

World Successful Photographer Tension Resolve Outside World Eliminating

Author:Aaron Siskind

“As photographers, we must learn to relax our beliefs. Move on objects with your eye straight on, to the left, around on the right. Watch them grow large as they approach, group and regroup as you shift your position. Relationships gradually emerge and sometimes assert themselves with finality. And that's your picture.”

Sometimes Eye Moving Belief Left Grows Watches Groups Position Objects Approach Photographer Relax Finality

Author:Aaron Siskind

“It is no longer a matter of expressing reality, but of expressing what one feels about reality.”

Feels Matter Reality

Author:Aaron Siskind

“The only other things I got from the abstract expressionists is the absolute belief that this canvas is the complete total area of struggle, this is the arena, this is where the fight is taking place, the battle. Everybody believes that, but you have to really believe that and work that way.”

Way Believe Fighting Belief Struggle Battle Areas Absolutes Abstract Canvas Arena

Author:Aaron Siskind

“For some reason or other there was in me the desire to see the world clean and fresh and alive, as primitive things are clean and fresh and alive. The so-called documentary picture left me wanting something.”

World Reason Desire Left Alive Clean Primitive Documentaries

Author:Aaron Siskind

“We look at the world and see what we have learned to believe is there. We have been conditioned to expect... but, as photographers, we must learn to relax our beliefs.”

World Believe Looks Has Beens Art Belief Creativity Photography Photographer Relax

Author:Aaron Siskind

“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever... it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.”

“When I make a photograph I want it to be an altogether new object, complete and self-contained, whose basic condition is order (unlike the world of events and actions whose permanent condition is change and disorder).”

World Want Self Action Order Conditions Events Objects Photography Photographer Photograph Permanent Disorder Self Contained

Book:Aaron Siskind, photographer

Source: Aaron Siskind, photographer

“However, I must stress that my own interest is immediate and in the picture. What I am conscious of and what I feel is the picture I am making, the relation of that picture to others I have made and, more generally, its relation to others I have experienced.”

Feels Made Interest My Own Photography Conscious Stress Relation Photographer

Book:Aaron Siskind, photographer

Source: Aaron Siskind, photographer

“The only nature I'm interested in is my own nature.”

My Own Photography Photographer

Author:Aaron Siskind

“I was given a small camera as a wedding gift from a very dear friend. My first pictures were taken on my honeymoon. As soon as I became familiar with the camera, I was intrigued with the possibilities of expression it offered. It was like a discovery for me.”

Firsts Given Taken Possibility Expression Photography Discovery Cameras Photographer Dear Familiar Intrigued Dear Friend Honeymoon

Author:Aaron Siskind

“What is the subject matter of this apparently very personal world? It has been suggested that these shapes and images are underworld characters, the inhabitants of the vast common realm of memories that have gone down below the level of conscious control. It may be they are. The degree of emotional involvement and the amount of free association with the material being photographed would point in that direction.”

“The business of making a photograph may be said in simple terms to consist of three elements: the objective world (whose permanent condition is change and disorder), the sheet of paper on which the picture will be realized, and the experience which brings them together.”

World May Said Together Three Term Simple Conditions Elements Paper Photography Photograph Objectives Permanent Disorder Sheets

Book:Aaron Siskind, photographer

Source: Aaron Siskind, photographer

“Producing a photographic document involves preparation in excess. There is first the examination of the idea of the project. Then the visits to the scene, the casual conversations, and more formal interviews - talking, and listening, and looking, looking. ... And finally, the pictures themselves, each one planned, talked, taken and examined in terms of the whole.”

Source: Harlem photographs, 1932-1940

“In any art, you don't know in advance what you want to say - it's revealed to you as you say it. That's the difference between art and illustration.”

Knows Want Art Differences Creativity Photography Photographer What You Want Illustration

Author:Aaron Siskind

“As the language or vocabulary of photography has been extended, the emphasis of meaning has shifted, shifted from what the world looks like to what we feel about the world and what we want the world to mean.”

World Want Feels Looks Mean Has Beens Language Photography Photographer Vocabulary Emphasis

Book:Aaron Siskind, photographer

Source: Aaron Siskind, photographer

“To me documentary photography means making a picture so that the viewer doesn’t think about the man who made the picture. At its esthetic core is very old tradition in art: naturalism. And its purpose is to document all facets of social relationships.”

“If you look very intensely and slowly things will happen that you never dreamed of before.”

Ifs Looks Happens Photographer

Author:Aaron Siskind

“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving.”

Way Feelings Photography Photographer Photograph Little Things Touching Captured Photography By Photographers Inspirational Photography Great Photography Inspiring Photography Street Photography Capturing A Moment Photography Color Photography Photography Love Professional Photographer

Author:Aaron Siskind

About the Author

Born: December 4, 1903
Died: February 8, 1991
Known for: Photographer
Quotes: 20

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Photographer Photography World Photograph Art Belief Documentaries Feels Has Beens Looks

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Aaron Siskind, photographerRelated source material

Harlem photographs, 1932-1940Related source material

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