Home / Quotes / Quote by Susan Sontag

Quote by Susan Sontag

“The two ideas are antithetical. Insofar as photography is (or should be) about the world, the photographer counts for little, but insofar as it is the instrument of intrepid, questioning subjectivity, the photographer is all.”

Quote by Susan Sontag

Author

Susan Sontag was an American writer, critic, and photographer. Known for her unique literary style and profound thinking, her work spans various fields including literature, art, and politics. Born on January 16, 1933, she passed away on December 28, 2004. more

You May Also Like

“As a matter of fact, nearly all the greatest work is being, and has always been done, by those who are following photography for the love of it, and not merely for financial reasons. As the name implies, an amateur is one who works for love.”

Matter Reason Done Facts Names Photography Photographer Financial Following Matter Of Fact

Book:Stieglitz on photography: his selected essays and notes

Source: Stieglitz on photography: his selected essays and notes

“When photographers get beyond copying the achievements of others, or just repeating their own accidental first successes, they learn that they do not know where in the world they will find pictures. Nobody does. Each photograph that works is a revelation to its supposed creator.”

Knows World Firsts Doe Achievement Photography Photographer Photograph Creator Revelations Copying

Book:Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews

Source: Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews

“Part of the reason that these attempts at explanation fail, I think, is that photographers, like all artists, choose their medium because it allows them the most fully truthful expression of their vision... as Robert Frost told a person who asked him what one of his poems meant, 'You want me to say it worse?'”

Thinking Want Persons Reason Artist Vision Failing Expression Photography Photographer Mediums Explanation Want Me Truthful Frost You Want Me

Book:Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews

Source: Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews

“...I felt that photography ought to start with and remain faithful to the appearance of the world, and in so doing record contradictions. The greatest pictures would then... find wholeness in the torn world.”

World Felt Records Ought Photography Photographer Appearance Faithful Contradiction Wholeness Torn

Author:Robert Adams

“It is just as important to bring people the evidence of the beauty of the world of nature and of man as it is to give them a document of ugliness, squalor, and despair.”

People Men World Giving Important Despair Photography Evidence Photographer Documents Ugliness Beauty Of The World Squalor

Book:Ansel Adams: An Autobiography

Source: Ansel Adams: An Autobiography

“Landscape pictures can offer us, I think, three verities: geography, autobiography, and metaphor. Geography is, if taken alone, sometimes boring, autobiography is frequently trivial, and metaphor can be dubious. But taken together, as in the best work of people like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, the three kinds of information strengthen each other and reinforce what we all work to keep intact - the affection for life.”

Source: Beauty in photography: essays in defense of traditional values

“The job of the photographer, in my view, is not to catalogue indisputable fact but to try to be coherent about intuition and hope. This is not to say that he is unconcerned with the truth.”

Trying Facts Jobs Views Photography Photographer Intuition Catalogues Unconcerned

Book:Beauty in photography: essays in defense of traditional values

Source: Beauty in photography: essays in defense of traditional values

“When you pose for a photograph, it's behind a smile that isn't yours. You are angry and hungry and alive. What I value in you is that intensity. I want to make portraits as intense as people.”

People Want Values Behinds Alive Photography Angry Photographer Photograph Hungry Intense Intensity Portraits Behind A Smile

Author:Richard Avedon

“And if you can find out something about the laws of your own growth and vision as well as those of photography you may be able to relate the two, create an object that has a life of its own, which transcends craftsmanship. That is a long road, and because it must be your own road nobody can teach it to you or find it for you. There are no shortcuts, no rules.”

Ifs Wells May Long Two Able Law Growth Vision Teach Objects Photography Photographer Relate Shortcuts Craftsmanship Long Road

Author:Paul Strand

“My creative process begins when I get out with the camera and interact with the world. A camera is truly a license to explore. There are no uninteresting things. There are just uninterested people.”

People World Process Creative Photography Cameras Photographer Creative Process License Uninterested

Author:Jerry Uelsmann