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Photography Quotes

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Photography Quotes

“I wanted to be a car mechanic and I wanted to race cars and the idea of trying to make something out of my life wasn't really a priority. But the accident allowed me to apply myself at school. I got great grades. Eventually I got very excited about anthropology and about social sciences and psychology, and I was able to push my photography even further and eventually discovered film and film schools.”

“I wanted to transfer to an art school, and ended up going to the University of Southern California. They had a cinematography school, and I said "Well, that's sort of like photography, maybe that will be interesting." And once I started in that department, I found what it was that I loved and was good at.”

“It might sound crazy, but filming in a conflict zone, in Afghanistan, and being a female filmmaker was the easy part. I found people open and understanding of the importance and beauty of filmic storytelling. I never had to explain why Jake Bryant, my Director of Photography, and I were climbing up a ladder to get a high shot, or running ahead to get an arrival shot, or filming weeks after weeks, months after months, collecting so much material. The process was respected and honored.”

“I think the equipment you use has a real, visible influence on the character of your photography. You're going to work differently, and make different kinds of pictures, if you have to set up a view camera on a tripod than if you're Lee Friedlander with handheld 35 mm rangefinder. But fundamentally, vision is not about which camera or how many megapixels you have, it's about what you find important. It's all about ideas.”

“In the history of photography, one process has always replaced another. The tumultuous realignment that's going on in the photography now is really just a natural evolution. The irony is that none of the processes that have been replaced have disappeared. More people than ever are practicing every approach to shooting and printing.”

“I think there is an element of magic in photography - light, chemistry, precious metals - a certain alchemy. You can wield a camera like a magic wand almost. Murmur the right words and you can conjure up proof of a dream. I believe in wonder. I look for it in my life every day; I find it in the most ordinary things.”

“The idea that the snapshot would be thought of as a cult or movement is very tiresome to me and, I'm sure, confusing to others. It's a swell word I've always liked. It probably came about because it describes a basic fact of photography. In a snap, or small portion of time, all that the camera can consume in breadth and bite and light is rendered in astonishing detail: all the leaves on a tree, as well as the tree itself and all its surroundings.”

“When you take a picture you haven't a clue that it is going to be what it is. Maybe you have a clue but you don't really know. There are too many possibilities. Part of the game is how many balls you can juggle. It is to me. When you are 12 you can juggle two. Maybe when you are 50 you can juggle five. That is an interesting concept to me: how much I can put in and still make it pull together?”

“But everyone cannot be there, and that is why photographers go there - to show them, to reach out and grab them and make them stop what they are doing and pay attention to what is going on - to create pictures powerful enough to overcome the diluting effects of the mass media and shake people out of their indifference - to protest and by the strength of that protest to make others protest.”

“Most photographers go and photograph something that they see, that exists, and that somebody else has created - they document it. But fashion photographers have to create what they're going to photograph. We have to go into the thought and build it up, get a girl, get a guy, get a situation, get the house, get the decor. It's the meaning of the word photography: "writing with light."”