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Quote by Ralph Gibson

“I embrace the abstract in photography and exist on a few bits of order extracted from the chaos of reality.”

Author

Ralph Gibson is an influential American photographer born on January 16, 1939. His work is known for its unique perspective and profound thematic exploration, making him one of the key figures in the American photography scene. more

“It occurs to me that at the beginning one works passionately to learn photography. This takes years, and the craft is usually formed during this period. Then as time passes one finds oneself more in the role of serving the medium... Then, as in the example of several masters that I have been privileged to know personally, it appears that by having devoted oneself totally to the medium, one becomes photography.”

Knows Years Has Beens Roles Example Masters Periods Photography Oneself Mediums Crafts Serving Devoted Privileged Time Passes

Author:Ralph Gibson

“One night I was on my [Navy] ship... on my first cruise crossing the North Atlantic in a horrible storm, chained to the rails so I wouldn't fall overboard. In this lightning and thunder and hail, in this misery, I shouted at the heavens with my little squeaky voice and said, Someday I'm going to be a photographer! It was as big an epiphany as any man ever had.”

Men Firsts Littles Said Bigs Night Fall Heaven Voice Misery Photographer Storm Horrible Ships Someday Lightning Thunder Navy One Night Crossings Epiphany Rail Cruise Hail Chained Overboard

Author:Ralph Gibson

“I see the experience of pictures as a kind of cycle, a kind of circular motion in which you're in the world, then you enter the picture and you're in a different world (it's not the same as the one you live in, but recognizable as one you might live in). And then you're returned to your world with an enlarged sense of its possibilities.”

World Kind Different Might Possibility Cycles Different Worlds Circular Motion

Author:Frank Gohlke

“When a photographer chooses a subject, he or she is making a claim on the interest and attention of future viewers, a prediction about what will be thought to have been important.”

Has Beens Important Interest Attention Subjects Claims Photographer Predictions Viewers

Author:Frank Gohlke

“Photography, too, reduces the world to strips and rectangles; photographers scrutinize the surfaces of reality in hope of unlocking the potential for significance that is latent within them.”

World Reality Photography Photographer Surface Significance Latent Unlocking Scrutinize Rectangles

Book:Thoughts on Landscape: Collected Writings and Interviews

Source: Thoughts on Landscape: Collected Writings and Interviews

“Whatever the aspect, I've tried to provide clear witness to what I've found, to resonate well enough with the harmonics of the place that the tuning can be felt in the pictures.”

Wells Enough Found Felt Clear Aspect Witness Tuning

Author:Frank Gohlke

“The documentary style is an incredibly flexible and useful one. It's a wonderful tool for establishing the credibility of the version of things that's in the photograph - a kind of rhetorical device or rhetorical strategy. It's always felt very natural to me, because I want a person to end up thinking about the world, and to think about it in a way that is transformed by the experience of art.”

“[A photograph] is a part of the evidence. I'm not saying it's the truth - it's part of the evidence.”

Evidence Photograph

Author:Jim Goldberg

Quote by Ralph Gibson

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