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Garry Winogrand

Garry Winogrand Quotes

Photographer

Garry Winogrand was an American photographer known for his distinctive street photography style. His work captured the diversity and vitality of American society in the mid-20th century, particularly skilled at capturing moments in everyday life. Winogrand's style was unique, often depicting the face of American society with humor and satire.

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All Photograph Photography Knows Photographer Thinking Looks Ifs Interesting Way People Kind Want Cameras Stills I Can Interest Problem Trying World Ends

Famous Garry Winogrand Quotes

“A photograph can look any way.”

Way Looks Photography Photographer Photograph

Author:Garry Winogrand

“I really try to divorce myself from any thought of possible use of this stuff. That's part of the discipline. My only purpose while I'm working is to try to make interesting photographs, and what to do with them is another act - an alter consideration. Certainly while I'm working, I want them to be as useless as possible.”

Want Trying Use Purpose Stuff Interesting Discipline Photography Photographer Photograph Divorce Useless Consideration

Author:Garry Winogrand

“I think that there isn't a photograph in the world that has any narrative ability... They do not tell stories - they show you what something looks like. To a camera.”

Thinking World Looks Stories Shows Ability Cameras Photograph Narrative

Author:Garry Winogrand

“I don't have anything to say in any picture. But you do, from your experience, surmise something. You do give a photograph symbolic content, narrative content... But it's nothing to worry about!”

Giving Worry Photograph Narrative Symbolic

Author:Garry Winogrand

“I knew that was coming. That's another stupidity. The people who use the term don't even know the meaning. They use it to refer to photographs they believe are loosely organized, or casually made, whatever you want to call it. Whatever terms you like. The fact is, when they're talking about snapshots they're talking about the family album picture, which is one of the most precisely made photographs.”

People Knows Want Believe Made Facts Use Term Talking Photograph Albums Stupidity Organized Snapshots

Author:Garry Winogrand

“What if I said that every photograph I made was set up? From the photograph, you can't prove otherwise. You don't know anything from the photograph about how it was made, really.”

Ifs Knows Made Said Prove Photograph What If

Author:Garry Winogrand

“Every photograph could be set up. If one could imagine it, one could set it up. The whole discussion is a way of not talking about photographs.”

Ifs Way Whole Talking Imagine Photograph Discussion Not Talking

Author:Garry Winogrand

“I know what I like to use myself. I use Leicas, but when I look at the photograph, I don't ask the photograph questions. Mine or anybody else's. The only time I've ever dealt with that kind of thing is when I'm teaching.”

Knows Looks Kind Use Asks Teaching Mines Photograph Only Time Leica

Author:Garry Winogrand

“When I look at photographs, I couldn't care less "how."”

Looks Care Photograph

Author:Garry Winogrand

“I look at a photograph. What's going on? What's happening, photographically? If it's interesting, I try to understand why.”

Ifs Trying Looks Interesting Happenings Photograph

Author:Garry Winogrand

“I don't really have any faith in anybody enjoying photographs in a large enough sense to matter. I think it's all about finances, on one side.”

Thinking Matter Enough Enjoy Sides Photograph Finance

Author:Garry Winogrand

“Teaching is only interesting because you struggle with trying to talk about photographs, photographs that work, you see.”

Trying Interesting Struggle Teaching Photograph

Author:Garry Winogrand

“There are things I photograph because I'm interested in those things.”

Author:Garry Winogrand

“I said the photograph isn't what was photographed, it's something else. It's about transformation. And that's what it is.”

Said Transformation Photograph

Author:Garry Winogrand

“Let's put it this way - I photograph what interests me all the time. I live with the pictures to see what that thing looks like photographed. I'm saying the same thing; I'm not changing it.”

Way Looks Interest Photograph

Author:Garry Winogrand

“I photograph what interests me. I'm not saying anything different.”

Different Interest Photograph

Author:Garry Winogrand

“I never saw a pyramid, but I've seen photographs; I know what a pyramid or a sphinx looks like. There are pictures that do that, but they satisfy a different kind of interest.”

Knows Looks Kind Different Interest Saws Photograph Different Kinds Pyramids Sphinx

Author:Garry Winogrand

“Most photographs are of life, what goes on in the world. And that's boring, generally. Life is banal, you know. Let's say that an artist deals with banality. I don't care what the discipline is.”

Knows World Care Life Is Artist Deals Goes On Discipline Photograph Don't Care Boring I Don't Care Banality

Author:Garry Winogrand

“[Me book is] called Stock Photographs. It was done at the Fort Worth livestock show and rodeo. I was commissioned to shoot there by the Fort Worth Art Museum for a show. I probably shot a total of fourteen days, give or take.”

Giving Art Book Done Shows Shots Photograph Museums Fourteen Forts Rodeo Livestock Fort Worth

Author:Garry Winogrand

“My intention is to make interesting photographs. That's it, in the end. I don't make it up. Let's say it's a world I never made. That's what was there to deal with.”

World Made Ends Interesting Deals Intention Photograph

Author:Garry Winogrand

“If you take a good look at the book [ Stock Photographs], it's largely a portrait gallery of faces - faces that I found dramatic. And some of those turned out to be reasonably dramatic photographs. But that's all it is, I think.”

Ifs Thinking Looks Book Faces Found Photograph Dramatic Portraits Looking Good Gallery

Author:Garry Winogrand

“I have to photograph where I am.”

Author:Garry Winogrand

“For me anyway when a photograph is interesting, it's interesting because of the kind of photographic problem it states - which has to do with the contest between content and form.”

Kind States Problem Form Interesting Photograph Contests

Author:Garry Winogrand

“If you run into a monkey in some idiot context, automatically you've got a very real problem taking place in the photograph.”

Ifs Real Problem Running Photograph Idiot Monkeys Real Problems

Author:Garry Winogrand

“You've got a number of things that take place that are peculiar to still photography. One: how a picture looks - what you photograph is responsible for how a photograph looks. In other words, it's responsible for the form.”

Looks Stills Form Numbers Photography Responsible Photograph Peculiar

Author:Garry Winogrand

“What you photograph is responsible for how a photograph looks - the form, the design, whatever word you want to use.”

Want Looks Use Form Design Responsible Photograph

Author:Garry Winogrand

“There's no way a photograph has to look... in a sense. There are no formal rules of design that can apply.”

Way Looks Design Photograph Formal

Author:Garry Winogrand

“A photograph can look anyway. It just depends basically on what you photograph.”

Looks Depends Photograph

Author:Garry Winogrand

“Well, in terms of what a camera does. Again, you go back to that original idea that what you photograph is responsible for how it [the photograph] looks. And it's not plastic, in a way. The problem is unique in photographic terms.”

Way Wells Looks Doe Ideas Problem Term Unique Responsible Originals Cameras Photograph Plastic Original Ideas

Author:Garry Winogrand

“If I photograph you I don't have you, I have a photograph of you. It's got its own thing. That's really what photography, still photography, is about.”

Ifs Stills Photography Photograph

Author:Garry Winogrand

“In the simplest sentence, I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed. Basically, that's why I photograph, in the simplest language. That's the beginning of it and then we get to play the games.”

Looks Play Games Language Photograph Sentences Simplest

Author:Garry Winogrand

“You know, you get into the business of commercial photography, and that's all you do is photograph what you know. That's what you're hired for.”

Knows Photography Photograph

Author:Garry Winogrand

“It's very easy to make successful photographs - it's very easy.”

Easy Successful Photograph

Author:Garry Winogrand

“I'm a good craftsman and I can have this particular intention: let's say, I want a photograph that's going to push a certain button in an audience, to make them laugh or love, feel warm or hate or what - I know how to do this.”

Knows Want Feels I Can Certain Hate Audience Laughing Know How Particular Intention Photograph Warm Buttons Craftsman

Author:Garry Winogrand

“It's the easiest thing in the world to do that, to make successful photographs. It's a bore.”

World Successful Photograph Bores

Author:Garry Winogrand

“A pun calls the meaning of a word into question, and it upsets us tremendously. We laugh because suddenly we find out we're not going to get killed. I think a lot of things work that way with photographs.”

Thinking Way Laughing Photograph Upset Pun

Author:Garry Winogrand

“Los Angeles has interested me for a long time. I was in Texas for five years, for the same reason. I wanted to photograph there.”

Years Long Reason Wanted Five Long Time Photograph Five Years Los Angeles Texas

Author:Garry Winogrand

“If I saw something in my viewfinder that looked familiar to me, I would do something to shake it up.”

Ifs Saws Photography Photographer Photograph Familiar Shakes Photography By Photographers Inspirational Photography Inspiring Photography Street Photography Shake It Up

Author:Garry Winogrand

“Photography is about finding out what can happen in the frame. When you put four edges around some facts, you change those facts.”

Facts Happens Inspiring Four Findings Photography Photograph Edges Inspirational Photography Inspiring Photography Street Photography

Author:Garry Winogrand

“Photographers mistake the emotion they feel while taking the photo as a judgment that the photograph is good”

Feels Emotion Mistake Judgment Photography Photographer Photograph Street Photography

Author:Garry Winogrand

“The photograph should be more interesting or more beautiful than what was photographed”

Should Beautiful Interesting Photography Photographer Photograph Insightful

Author:Garry Winogrand

“I photograph to see what the world looks like in photographs.”

World Looks Photography Photographer Photograph

Author:Garry Winogrand

“I don't have anything to say in any picture. My only interest in photography is to see what something looks like as a photograph. I have no preconceptions.”

Looks Interest Photography Photographer Photograph Preconceptions

Author:Garry Winogrand

“There are no photographs while I'm reloading .”

Photography Photographer Photograph Reloading

Author:Garry Winogrand

“A photograph is the illusion of a literal description of how the camera 'saw' a piece of time and space.”

Art Space Creativity Saws Pieces Photography Illusion Cameras Photograph Description Time And Space Literal

Author:Garry Winogrand

“I like to think of photographing as a two-way act of respect. Respect for the medium, by letting it do what it does best, describe. And respect for the subject, by describing it as it is. A photograph must be responsible to both.”

Thinking Way Doe Two Subjects Photography Responsible Photograph Mediums Two Ways Describing Being Responsible

Author:Garry Winogrand

“Every photograph is a battle of form versus content.”

Form Battle Photography Photographer Photograph Versus

Author:Garry Winogrand

“Sometimes photographers mistake emotion for what makes a great street photograph.”

Sometimes Emotion Mistake Streets Photographer Photograph

Author:Garry Winogrand

“There is no special way a photograph should look.”

Way Should Looks Special Photography Photographer Photograph

Author:Garry Winogrand

“I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.”

Looks Photography Photographer Photograph Street Photography

Author:Garry Winogrand

About the Author

Born: January 14, 1928
Died: March 19, 1984
Known for: Photographer
Quotes: 170

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