“If you look at a photograph, and you think, 'My isn't that a beautiful photograph,' and you go on to the next one, or 'Isn't that nice light?' so what? I mean what does it do to you or what's the real value in the long run? What do you walk away from it with? I mean, I'd much rather show you a photograph that makes demands on you, that you might become involved in on your own terms or be perplexed by.” IfsThinkingLooksMeanLongDoeRealShowsLightMightRunningBeautifulValuesNextTermWalksNiceGoes OnInvolvedDemandPhotographLong RunsThe Next OneReal ValuePerplexed Author:Duane Michals
“I think that the photographer must completely control his picture and bring to it all his personality, and in this area most photographs never transcend being just snapshots. When a great photographer does infuse the snapshot with his personality and vision, it can be transformed into something truly moving and beautiful.” ThinkingDoeBeautifulMovingVisionPersonalityAreasPhotographerPhotographTransformedSnapshots Author:Duane Michals
“I often try to photograph things about a person that are not visible.” TryingPersonsPhotographVisible Author:Duane Michals
“I never photograph sunsets and I never photograph moonrises. I'm not interested in what things look like.” LooksPhotographSunsetNot Interested Author:Duane Michals
“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.” PeopleThinkingKnowsWayShouldFacesSeeingMagicPhotographNew WaysGreat PowerProvocative Author:Duane Michals
“A photograph of a woman crying tells me nothing about grief. Or a photograph of a woman ecstatic tells me nothing about ecstasy. What is the nature of these emotions? The problem with photography is that it only deals with appearances.” ProblemDealsGriefEmotionCryPhotographyPhotographAppearanceEcstasyEcstatic Author:Duane Michals
“Photographers tend not to photograph what they can’t see, which is the very reason one should try to attempt it. Otherwise we’re going to go on forever just photographing more faces and more rooms and more places. Photography has to transcend description. It has to go beyond description to bring insight into the subject, or reveal the subject, not as it looks, but how does it feel?” FeelsShouldTryingLooksDoeReasonFacesRoomsForeverSubjectsGoes OnPhotographyPhotographerPhotographInsightDescription Author:Duane Michals
“Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be.” DealsPhotographyPhotographerPhotographAppearanceInsightfulCamera And PhotographyInspiring PhotographyArt PhotographyNikon Author:Duane Michals
“How foolish of me to believe that it would be that easy. I had confused the appearance of trees and automobiles, and people with a reality itself, and believed that a photograph of these appearances to be a photograph of it. It is a melancholy truth that I will never be able to photograph it and can only fail. I am a reflection photographing other reflections within a reflection. To photograph reality is to photograph nothing.” PeopleBelieveRealityWould BeAbleEasyFailingTreeReflectionPhotographAppearanceFoolishConfusedMelancholyAutomobile Author:Duane Michals
“I got a lot of flak originally for writing with photographs, because the great cliche in photography is that one photograph is worth a thousand words, and photographers are usually dodo birds anyway.” WritingThousandPhotographyBirdPhotographerPhotographClicheDodo Bird Author:Duane Michals
“I write in order to express what the photo itself cannot say. A photograph of my father doesn't tell me what I thought of him, which for me is much more important than what the man looked like.” MenWritingImportantOrderFatherHe ManPhotograph Author:Duane Michals
“Taking photographs and writing is my way of saying I was here, I saw this, I felt this, I heard this.” WayWritingFeltSawsHeardPhotographMy Way Author:Duane Michals
“Most photographs, to me, are description, but they lack insight.” PhotographInsightDescription Author:Duane Michals
“Usually when painters use photographs, they enlarge and copy them and simply make a large, boring painting of a large, boring photograph.” UsePaintingPhotographBoringPainterCopies Author:Duane Michals
