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Quote by Walker Evans

“It is the way to educate your eye and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop.”

Quote by Walker Evans

Author

Walker Evans, born on November 3, 1903, was an influential American photographer. His work is renowned for its profound insight into American society and culture, particularly his depiction of the Southern poor. Evans' photography has had a significant impact on 20th-century photographic art. more

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“With the camera, it's all or nothing. You either get what you're after at once, or what you do has to be worthless. I don't think the essence of photography has the hand in it so much. The essence is done very quietly with a flash of the mind, and with a machine. I think too that photography is editing, editing after the taking. After knowing what to take, you have to do the editing.”

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“That’s my idea of what a portrait ought to be, anonymous and documentary and a straightforward picture of mankind.”

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“Nobody should touch a Polaroid [camera] until he's over sixty”

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“What I believe is really good in the so-called documentary approach to photography is the addition of lyricism.[this quality] is usually produced unconsciously and even unintentionally and accidentally by the cameraman.”

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“If you scrutinize reality closely enough, if in some way you really, really get to it, it becomes fantastic.”

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“Freaks was a thing I photographed a lot. It was one of the first things I photographed and it had a terrific kind of excitement for me. I just used to adore them. I still do adore some of them. I don't quite mean they're my best friends but they made me feel a mixture of shame and awe.”

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“It's important to take bad pictures. It's the bad ones that have to do with what you've never done before. They can make you recognize something you hadn't seen in a way that will make you recognize it when you see it again.”

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