20th-century Artist Quotes

I must admit that I am not a member of the ugly school. I have a great regard for certain notions of beauty even though to some it is an old fashioned idea. Some photographers think that by taking pictures of human misery, they are addressing a serious problem. I do not think that misery is more profound than happiness.

Women are beautiful in the light of the day, but are even more so in the shadows of the night.

And only the photographer himself knows the effect he wants. He should know by instinct, grounded in experience, what subjects are enhanced by hard or soft, light or dark treatment.

A river seems a magic thing. A magic, moving, living part of the very earth itself.

Laura Gilpin
Laura Gilpin
Let's look at photographs as food. Does an exhibition leave you hungry or fill you with the visual equivalent of a snack or feast?

Minor White
Minor White
Obsession and repetition in the process of making things is one constant element in my work.

It had never once occurred to me that the paper I wanted to work for would not want me. Certainly I never expected to be rejected solely because I was a girl!

Kathryn Tucker Windham
Kathryn Tucker Windham
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.

I loved to press the shutter, to freeze time, to turn little slices of life into rectangle rife with metaphor.

Photographing is an emotional thing, a graceful thing. Photography allows me to wander with a purpose.

It was clear, I was not Manet's type. Picasso—who had a way with women—only used me & Duchamp never even considered me.

My sympathies have always been with the everyday people... the center of my photography.

To photograph is often compared to an act of redemption - to select from an infinite number of choices that which is to be remembered.

Children are the true believers, and some of us are lucky enough to make the transition to adulthoood without ever losing the ability to see through young eyes.

Black people have been killed for directing their gaze at the wrong person. I want my subjects to reclaim their right to look, to see, to be seen.

Emotion may be expressed, or the utter lack of it may be expressed, but the only important fact is that of expression.

The older I get, the one thing I can trust in myself more than anything else is the way I feel about something. When I photograph I try to be as aware of my feelings as I can be to somehow try and get them out of me and onto the film in terms of the way I am responding or seeing the world.

It would be mistaken to suppose that any of the best photography is come at by intellection; it is like all art, essentially the result of an intuitive process, drawing on all that the artist is rather than on anything he thinks, far less theorizes about.

Empty empty empty
so many empty chairs
everywhere. They look
charming in van Gogh's paintings.

The desert... may serve better as the backdrop for the problematic relationship between man and the environment. The human struggle, the successes... both noble and foolish, are readily apparent in the desert. Symbols and relationships seem to arise that stand for the human condition itself.

In my work, the information is the least important part. It's there, and the work wouldn't mean the same thing without it, but it isn't structured around the information. The most interesting part to me is the visual play... looking at this little universe of representation that I can make out of the world.

Where you point the camera is the question and the picture you get is the answer to decipher.

I do not photograph for ulterior purposes. I photograph for the thing itself - for the photograph - without consideration of how it may be used.

We are Africans not because we are born in Africa, but because Africa is born in us.

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.