“When I was starting out, conceptual photography had become something that had to be amateur - like, that had to be black-and-white, or photocopied, or really not an object in order to be taken seriously. It had to work against technical mastery, and so on. So I think that my work is full of obstacles in the sense that it does look highly familiar and accessible. It does look like it's already "solved at first sight." It does look like it's part of a larger industry.” ThinkingTakenPhotographyObstaclesFamiliar Author:Elad Lassry
“I think there's a general confusion that my work is about types of photography. But really that's just a tool to introduce some questions I have about seeing. What happens when all of these conditions and structures and histories and cultures and tools you have around you begin to fail? On the one hand there is an engagement with histories and cultures, and on the other, there is this very lonesome space of actually coming to terms with seeing.” ThinkingCultureTermFailingPhotographyConfusionIntroducing Author:Elad Lassry
“I've always thought that each album would be my last one, and then I would be out of ideas and I would move to photography or something. I thought it was transient and it's not because of this entrenched career stubbornness that I've done it for so long, it's just something I enjoy doing, and it's the most direct way I can express something.” LongDoneMovingEnjoyPhotographyDirectStubbornness Author:Tim Hecker
“Being a photographer helps me see the work differently. I always walk away seeing things differently than when I stare at them myself. It gives me a little distance. So I love photography, but it also helps me tell the story. When I shoot the ad campaign for my work, it allows me to be much more direct.” GivingHelpingPhotographyDirectDistancePhotographerStaringHelp Me Author:Reed Krakoff
“Photorealism was this fantastic movement in like the late '60s and '70s, because photography finally became something that everyone could produce. Photorealism was and should've been a very short element. But the thing is, photography is so satisfying. Certainly when it's well done.” DonePhotographyFantasticWell Done Author:Damian Loeb
“One of the elements of photography is, just by nature, journalistic. It's some kind of documentation. The most successful pictures to me are with an interesting looking girl. They're not being provocative. They're just presenting their drugs to you, showing you what they take. There's a good-looking girl, but here's this thing about her that's not so cool. It makes you feel a little uneasy.” KindGirlInterestingSuccessfulDrugPhotographyPresentingProvocativeUneasy Author:Richard Kern
“I left film because I felt that photography was my art. It was something I could do on my own, whereas film was so collaborative. I thought as a photographer I could make something that was artistic and that was mine, and I liked that. And it wasn't until I got back into film and I have very small crews and I could do very tiny filmmaking that wasn't 100 people that I still felt that I was making something artistic as a filmmaker. So, you know, I'm an artist, and whether it's photography or film, I want my voice to be there and I think my voice is very strong in this film.” PeopleThinkingArtFilmArtistStrongPhotographyPhotographerArtisticFilmmakerVery StrongFilmmaking Author:Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
“A movie is painting, it's photography, it's literature - because you have to have the screenplay - it's music. Put a different soundtrack to a comedy and it's a tragedy.” DifferentLiteratureComedyPaintingPhotographyTragedy Author:Paula Patton
“Sven Schumann did an interview with photographer Wolfgang Tillmans in Berlin addressing the question: What is photography today when everyone is a photographer? These kinds of questions and answers you find in a magazine, on paper and not on Instagram. For me this is the essence of a magazine - it's questioning what's going on today and celebrating true creativity without compromise.” KindTodayCreativityPhotographyPhotographerCompromiseCelebrateQuestioning Author:Olivier Zahm
“You don't understand, photography is not about getting the right picture, it's about documenting your everyday life.” PhotographyEverydayEveryday Life Author:Olivier Zahm
“For me being able to see all different places where I've skied and cherish them, and be able to see them - really see them - is something that I'm passionate about. I'm into photography, so I really enjoy taking photos of all the places that I've gone. I think that's the coolest part about being an Olympic sportsman, I get to travel around and see the world for free, technically. And get to see different cultures, and all the different people that I've met along the way - it's a pretty awesome job.” PeopleThinkingWorldDifferentCultureEnjoyPhotographyPassionateCherishDifferent PlaceDifferent Cultures Author:Resi Stiegler
“During my performances, I don't like folks to take pictures because I feel that we live in a very photographic time. Photography was invented over 100 years ago, and now it's at its peak because everyone has a camera. The fact that they are taking experiences and filtering them through a mechanical lens I find amazing, but also disheartening. Amazing when you have photographs that start revolutions. Disheartening when you have people making photographs but not living.” PeopleRevolutionPhotographyPhotograph Author:Xaviera Simmons
“I think creating the clothes is about creating historical images - and that's about more than fashion. It is about the fashion, the photography, what you are doing in the moment. It's what we call in French rechercher, or the search for that thing. So even though fashion is not scientific, I think being a designer is somewhat like being a scientist.” ThinkingMomentsFashionPhotographyScientistHistoricalDesigner Author:Nicolas Ghesquiere
“For example, you now look at pictures from 1968, they are hugely misleading in terms of standing in as an absolute image of the time. Because maybe two percent of the people looked the way that we now associate with that time. I was also aware that what I was aiming for is an idealized, utopian version of how people could be together. I found photography to be a very powerful tool because as long as it looks real, it is perceived as real.” PeopleLongRealTogetherTermPowerfulPhotographyVery PowerfulMisleadUtopian Author:Wolfgang Tillmans
“Whatever pictures are put into the world, the balance needs to be readdressed, it needs to be observed. That's why I am also really questioning what a lot of photography has done since I began. I am not saying because of me, but I mean, photographing some friends partying and publishing the pictures meant something else in '92 than it does in 2011. And I find the younger generation is not questioning this at all today.” WorldMeanDoneTodayPartyBalancePhotographyQuestioningPublishingYounger Generation Author:Wolfgang Tillmans
“I find fashion magazines so incredibly boring . . . There still is no new photography and no new concerns.” FashionPhotographyConcernBoring Author:Wolfgang Tillmans
“The original interest in making pictures that don't directly depict came around '97 or '98, when I felt there was such an acceleration of images in the world, and that was before Flickr and so on. So I felt a need to slow down how one consumes photographs. With the abstract pictures, I was engaged in trying to find new images, but in practice, it was a bit like throwing a wrench in the spokes. The omnipresence of photography is at a level that it has never been in the history of the world. I feel really curious to now reengage and see what the camera can do for me.” WorldTryingInterestPhotographyPhotographCuriousAbstractSlow DownWorld History Author:Wolfgang Tillmans
“I never had any intention nor interest in being an artist, but when I made work I realized that this was my language. What I had to say needed to be said in this way. I always loved taking photographs - but never considered myself a photographer. I have tremendous respect for photographers. I do use a camera and a photo as a basis for a lot of my work, but I use it as a means to attain an image to work from. The actual photography in my work is a monochromatic photograph. I'll photograph something and extract a color that will then be the background for a painting.” MeanArtistLanguageInterestPaintingPhotographyIntentionPhotographerPhotographI RealizedBeing An Artist Author:Paul Rusconi
“I knew I liked art. I knew I liked photography. I remember seeing photos of Linda Evangelista in Italian Vogue as a teenager, and at the time I didn't know who she was. There were two photos - one shot by Fabrizio Ferri and another one by Steven Meisel. I didn't know who any of those people were. I think it was the first summer I was modeling, I saw these magazines sitting out and looked at them. I remember thinking, These are the kind of images I want to make.” PeopleThinkingKindArtRememberSummerPhotographyTeenagerItalianModelingVogue Author:Amber Valletta
“I think photography is so hard. To be working in video and photography the past 20 years - because I was doing it in high school - you're dealing with mediums that change culture. The way they are distributed, disseminated - it's changed so dramatically. One of the things I always like to do is look at the structure of something and detach myself from the structure and figure out how to slightly alter it. So if the structure itself is constantly liquidated, it just really is difficult for me to really even know what to think of Instagram.” ThinkingSchoolPastCultureDifficultChangedPhotographyHigh School Author:Slater Bradley
“iStockphoto was revolutionizing the stock photography industry, establishing a whole new business model and democratizing stock art for everyone. It made sense for the industry-leading stock image company to take iStock to the next stage of growth, serving all markets at every price point.” ArtGrowthPhotographyNew Business Author:Bruce Livingstone
“I never designed before. I wasn't formally trained in design, I went to photography school at the ICP. But over time, I taught myself to draw, and I studied different techniques, various hemlines, and then I would take the ideas to a manufacturer and a patternmaker and have them produced into garments.” DifferentSchoolDesignPhotographyVarious Author:Minnie Mortimer
“Photography really is all about lines, and so is clothing. I worked for Oberto Gili for a couple of years after I was at ICP; we worked in fashion, travel, interior design, everything. I was inspired by his styling choices within fashion photography, and I think those experiences helped steer me towards fashion design. I love photography as a medium, so I think I will always take inspiration from it.” ThinkingInspirationChoicesFashionDesignCouplePhotographyInspired Author:Minnie Mortimer
“I like the drawings. And as a photography fan myself, I would look at Helmut Newton or Irving Penn and like to see the initial notes or drawings, to see where the ideas grew from. Also my sketches are key to my work because I came to realise early on that by doing drawings, I could formulate a plan of what I was thinking of - I could take control and direct the work.” ThinkingPhotographyDirectRealisingNewton Author:Miles Aldridge
“Words are difficult and photography takes the words away from things. It's difficult to talk about something that seems to come very naturally to you, to explain a process. A moment is really difficult to put on paper.” MomentsDifficultPhotography Author:Daria Werbowy
“One of the most amazing things that came out of 9/11 was all the pictures taken by amateurs, by people just going to work or coming or saw what was going on and took it. But all forms and various types of cameras, and when you look at that body of work you just see the impact of how photography is - when I taught once, I said that you have to be ready now for any event.” PeopleTakenPhotographyVariousGoing To WorkMost Amazing Author:Stanley Greene
“Twitter scares me. I think it's so amazing, like the internet in general, because of the connection that it gives people. But the concept that one 140-word post can change someone's life . . . that scares me. You can literally ruin someone's life with one tweet. So I only do Instagram. I love photography . . . and interacting with the fans. I do love hearing from them. I try to answer questions if I can.” PeopleThinkingGivingTryingInternetPhotographyScareTweet Author:Elisabeth Moss
“The magazine business is dying. It's a hard time for publishing. It does seem that everyone is much more opinionated now. I think there's probably more room for making opinionated illustrations. There was a time when Time magazine and Newsweek would have a realistic painted cover. A friend of mine used to do a lot of those paintings and he was told by the art director at one point, we are switching to photography. It seems that if someone saw a painting on a cover, it took a while to do, it must be old news. Photography became more immediate.” ThinkingArtDyingPaintingPhotographyHard TimesRealisticPublishingTime Magazine Author:Barry Blitt
“Every once in a while I have this revelation like, "Wow, a hundred years ago the world wasn't black and white." It was in color. Photographed in a certain way, people look from another time. We are just not used to seeing ourselves in that context. Something that's fascinating about photography is you can isolate a moment, tear it out of its context, and see it afresh. Another realization is that, "Wow, there's a big world out there, and people are still doing all sorts of the things that they used to do." We don't just live in iPad land.” PeopleWorldMomentsBlackTearsPhotographyRealizationRevelationsBlack And WhiteJust Live Author:Alec Soth
“I've never been the type of photographer to live with people I photograph. You know, shoot heroin with them, that kind of thing. I respect those photographers that work that way. But part of my personality is a certain amount of distance, and part of my attraction to the medium of photography is this distance where you're in the world, but you're removed from it.” PeopleWorldKindPersonalityPhotographyDistancePhotographerPhotographAttractionHeroin Author:Alec Soth
“I admire photographers that don't need a destination. In some ways, street photography is like that. There's a quality of wanderlust for sure in my work, but I need a destination.” QualityPhotographyPhotographerAdmire Author:Alec Soth
“I have been heavily criticized in the past at magazines for my black-and-white photography and the aggressive punch - I prefer to call it strong emotion - to the pictures. When everything is virtually disposable I feel these pictures really stand out.” PastStrongEmotionPhotographyAggressiveStanding Out Author:Max Vadukul
“Photography has always been a struggle for me to take seriously as an art form.” ArtStrugglePhotography Author:Pieter Hugo
“Photography's relationship with pornography is as old as photography. That kind of unholy relationship is formed from the very beginning, and there's a reason why: it's thoroughly enjoyable to be that voyeuristic. Voyeurism is a very old modality, and most of the history of photography is in some way related voyeurism.” KindReasonPhotographyPornographyEnjoyable Author:Charlotte Cotton
“I didn't do so well in the academic world, so I think the only way I could express myself was through visual art - anything I could get my hands on, whether it was glassblowing, sculpture, painting, or photography. I always wanted to be a painter. Or a farmer.” ThinkingWorldArtPaintingPhotographyPainterFarmersAcademicVisual Art Author:Nicole Kidman
“There was as big a reaction after the revelations about Assad's chemical weapons. Nevertheless, that photograph did strike a singular chord. Which leads us to a larger fact: we don't understand why certain photographs create such an upheaval in one's soul. You look at them and go, "Oh my gosh." And that doesn't happen with television. It's unique to photography. Photographs are unique in that they are a frame abstracted out of reality, out of, in this case, a civil war. A single event can carry so much weight. And that is extraordinary.” WarSoulRealityPhotographyUniqueExtraordinaryPhotographCivil WarRevelationsOh My Gosh Author:Stuart Franklin
“I was always interested in drawing and painting. I enrolled in college to study painting. But I didn't have any livelihood when I graduated. My mother died very young, and I didn't have any home, so I had to find a way to earn a living. It seemed to me that photography - to the great disappointment, I have to say, of my painting teacher - could offer that. So I went and did a degree in photography, and then after that I could go out and get paid for work. For portraits, things like that.” HomeMotherStudyTeacherCollegePaintingPhotographyDisappointmentMother Died Author:Stuart Franklin
“After my mother died, I lived with relatives. Reading was a means of escaping into other worlds, as photography, much later, was to become.” WorldMeanMotherReadingPhotographyMother Died Author:Stuart Franklin
“Photography for me has been tremendously good, because I'm not a very sociable person. I'm happy reading or sitting in the library or going for walks. So photography has brought me in contact with people and made me understand people in a way that I probably wouldn't have done if I hadn't been a photographer. And so I'm grateful for that, really.” PeopleDoneReadingPhotographyGratefulPhotographerLibrary Author:Stuart Franklin
“The world of photography is very self-aware. Everybody is always looking around. So it's quite difficult to stand up with a megaphone and declare, "This is what I think." As a reasonably shy person, I found it difficult to do that.” ThinkingWorldDifficultPhotographyShy Author:Stuart Franklin
“It's quite difficult to write about photography as a photographer. A lot of better photographers than me have declined to do it.” WritingDifficultPhotographyPhotographer Author:Stuart Franklin
“Photography was increasingly being seen as something outside the art world. As a sort of illustration. They just fired the director of photography at the Sunday Times Magazine - that's where everyone went with their photo essays in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. It was the place to get published. It is an issue. And I feel it. There's no budget. The budget-holders are very often people who've been to the professional colleges where art is not taught. So art as a part of education is something that's missing - since Thatcher's day, anyway.” PeopleWorldArtMissingCollegePhotographyArt IsSundayEssaysTime Magazine Author:Stuart Franklin
“Newspaper photographs nowadays are highly tautologous. You'll have an article about, say, stopping the war. And the photograph that will be used is literally a poster that reads "Stop The War." Or you'll have a story about a cash crisis in Barcelona, and the only picture you'll see is an ATM in Barcelona. The problem is actually systemic. On the one hand, you'll have a picture of a soda can to "illustrate" an article about the dangers of sugary drinks. On the other hand, anything that's reasonable in documentary photography is snapped up by the art world and we never see it.” WorldArtWarProblemDangerDrinkPhotographyCrisisPhotographPosters Author:Stuart Franklin
“There's an awful lot of work being done that no one ever sees, or that is only seen in the gallery world. I feel that the public are losing touch with the great stuff that's being done in photography.” WorldDonePhotographyLosing Author:Stuart Franklin
“I have a huge respect for the dedication that many people have, on the other side of the Atlantic, to photography. You can count them on one hand here. There's less respect for a Magnum photographer in Britain than there is in America. It's a much more postmodern culture here.” PeopleCulturePhotographyPhotographerDedicationPostmodern Author:Stuart Franklin
“Well, people from the "me" generation use photography to show off what they are doing, to show the world themselves and their friends. Those sort of diarized accounts have always been there. But the phenomena of making those diaries public is new, isn't it?” PeopleWorldPhotographyShowing Off Author:Stuart Franklin
“In the same way, photography, for me, has fragmented. You do have people doing bodies of work - often with found photographs - that are quite hard to understand unless you got a very sophisticated visual history behind you. But there are different camps.” PeopleDifferentPhotographyPhotographSophisticated Author:Stuart Franklin
“We don't understand what photography is doing. We don't understand the power of its rhetoric. We don't understand why the Provoke photographers showed Tokyo city as a ghastly and alien city when it was really going through this period of mega-capitalist growth. It's a very, very, very powerful force, the photograph. People ask me why it has such an ability to captivate us. And I just don't know.” PeopleGrowthAbilityPowerfulPhotographyPhotographerPhotographAliensAsk MeRhetoricProvokingVery Powerful Author:Stuart Franklin
“Photojournalism is photography with more story telling. A single image can be amazing and dramatic. I started out shooting individual images, but I found I wanted to have more of a voice: to actually say something. I wanted to do something more personal over a long period of time, with more authorship.” LongIndividualPhotographyDramatic Author:Olivia Arthur