Quotes from famous photographers

[PKR]

Is it only me who can't stand the man, no matter how good a photographer, just because of his attitude?

I don't think he's a bad photo artist, just someone whose work didn't interest me.

A friend's daughter graduated from a well-known Art School with a degree in Photography. She, through her instructors, had a really high opinion of the man and his work. She couldn't understand my disinterest.

Maybe, it's his "position" in the academic world or, in the world of museum curators that produced his foul attitude toward the art-public. I wonder if he would have been as foul with someone who didn't recognize him or know who he was? It seems it was an ego issue.

I was once in a conversation with a famous photo artist. We were in a local (SF) Art Museum where his work was on display. He'd been lecturing and I happened into the room as the lecture ended. As we were talking art (above the heads of the little people, as he saw them), he continually insulted a bunch of women who were Museum volunteers. From their dress, i would guess that they were well to do and part of the Museum's Committees. It got so bad that, I asked him about his behavior. He replied, they love it, "the temperamental artist".

 

[Noserider]

"If your photos aren't good enough, you're not close enough"

Robert Capa

(that should stir the pot)

 

[narsuitus]

Don’t pack up your camera until you’ve left the location.
--Joe McNally

 

[narsuitus]

Skill in photography is acquired by practice and not by purchase.
--Percy W. Harris

 

[Pál_K]

"I regret that that's one of the stupidest questions I've ever been asked!"
William Eggleston

What was the question?

Of Eggleston, I know only his work, which I really like. I know nothing about him otherwise.

There’s a quote by a famous photographer who I can no longer remember. The setting is a photo exhibition where, after the photographer talked about his photos, someone asked him what shutter speed he used for a particularly nice photo. His reply was something like “45 years and a 60th of a second”. I wish I knew who that was.

 

[narsuitus]

Take nothing but pictures.
Leave nothing but footprints.
Kill nothing but time.
--Motto of the Baltimore Grotto (a caving society)

 

[Swift1]

Is it only me who can't stand the man, no matter how good a photographer, just because of his attitude?

Eggleston is a bit of an enigma to me. I am a fan of his photography, but I wouldn't say I love his photography. Through his work, I learned so much that would eventually influence my own photography.
As a human being though, nearly everything that I've read or heard him say in interviews really makes me think that he isn't a very good person.
I've never actually met him though so I can't really judge him. Maybe it's all an act...

 

[Richard G]

On her technique, Jane Bown, in response to a question about it: “There’s an exposure I like, f2.8 at a 60th.”

 

[Erik van Straten]

Get close. Then, get closer.

Robert Capa.

 

[airfrogusmc]

"You should be able to look at me and see my work. You should be able to look at my work and see me." - Roy DeCarava

 

[PKR]

From the PJ Speed Graphic era, f8 and be there.

 

[Bill Clark]

“Beauty is in the eye of the checkbook holder.”

-Dean Collins

 

[Dogman]

Is it only me who can't stand the man, no matter how good a photographer, just because of his attitude?

You mean his perpetual intoxication?

I remember that quote of his from a video during a Q&A. It was a dumb question, IIRC.

 

[airfrogusmc]

From the PJ Speed Graphic era, f8 and be there.

I think Weegee said that?

"What the camera had to do was expose the evils of racism, the evils of poverty, the discrimination and he bigotry, by showing the people who suffered most under it. That was the way it had to be done." - Gordon Parks

 

[Richard G]

Sugimoto has many wonderful thoughts on photography.

“I didn’t want to be criticized for taking low-quality photographs, so I tried to reach the best, highest quality of photography and then to combine this with a conceptual art practice. But thinking back, that was the wrong decision. Developing a low-quality aesthetic is a sign of serious fine art—I still see this.”

 

[narsuitus]

We don't wake up for less than $10,000 a day.
--Supermodel Linda Evangelista

 

[airfrogusmc]

"I think that there isn’t a photograph in the world that has any narrative ability... They do not tell stories—they show you what something looks like. To a camera." - Garry Winogrand

 

[maigo]

No. No. No. Yes!

HCB

 

[airfrogusmc]

"I believe that street photography is central to the issue of photography—that it is purely photographic, whereas the other genres, such as landscape and portrait photography, are a little more applied, more mixed in the with the history of painting and other art forms." - Joel Meyerowitz

 

[johannielscom]

Photography ultimately is about framing current events into a future truth.

-me