“How difficult it is to learn not to see like cameras, which has had such an effect on us. The camera sees everything at once. We don't. There's a hierarchy. Why do I pick out that thing, that thing, that thing?”

— David Hockney

Interview with Mark Feeney, "David Hockney keeps seeking new avenues of exploration," Boston Globe (26 February 2006)
2000s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "How difficult it is to learn not to see like cameras, which has had such an effect on us. The camera sees everything at…" by David Hockney?

David Hockney 27

British artist 1937

David Hockney (1937) British artist

From a series of interviews with Marco Livingstone (April 22 - May 7, 1980 and July 6 - 7, 1980) quoted in Livingstone's David Hockney (1981) , p. 112
1980s
Context: When conventions are old, there's quite a good reason, it's not arbitrary. So Picasso discovered that, as it were, and I'm sure that for him that was probably almost as exciting as discovering Cubism, rediscovering conventions of ordinary appearance, one-point perspective or something. The purists think you're going backwards, but I know you'd go forward. Future art that is based on appearances won't look like the art that's gone before. Even revivals of a period are not the same. The Renaissance is not the same as ancient Greece; the Gothic revival is not the same as Gothic. It might look like that at first, but you can tell it's not. The way we see things is constantly changing. At the moment the way we see things has been left a lot to the camera. That shouldn't necessarily be.

“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”

Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) American photojournalist

Dorothea Lange (1978) Dorothea Lange: A Photographer's Life. p. vii
Context: You put your camera around your neck in the morning, along with putting on your shoes, and there it is, an appendage of the body that shares your life with you. The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.

“[I think] the movie is not a thing which is taken by the camera; the movie is the reality of the movie moving from reality to the camera.”

Jean-Luc Godard (1930) French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic

from Los Angeles Free Press, March 22, 1968. Gene Youngblood

“You know, people come in here with their fucking camera phones - everything’s a camera nowadays; you pick up a piece of fruit, it takes a picture of you. Or the computers which are everywhere which is proof that we like to be watched. That what we’ve replaced God with, technology! We’re fucking afraid to be alone, in a lift, in a taxi cab, we need cameras everywhere recording us unless we realise we’re alone, we might do something scary… like whimper, I don’t know!”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

On modern technology
What It Is (2009)

“Why do I see things differently from the way other people see them? Why do I pursue the questions that I pursue, even if others regard them as, as they say, "controversial?" Which merely means that they have a difference of opinion. They see things differently. I am interested both in nature, and in the human side of nature, and how the two can be brought together, and effectively used.”

Jonas Salk (1914–1995) Inventor of polio vaccine

Academy of Achievement interview (1991)

“The most powerful thing young students with neither money nor power can do, is to do activism and use journalists and their cameras. When people learn about the problems and discuss them, things start to change.”

Oksana Shachko (1987–2018) Ukrainian artist and activist with FEMEN

Interview with Luxemburger Wort (2015)

“Shame works like the zoom lens on a camera. When we are feeling shame, the camera is zoomed in tight and all we see is our flawed selves, alone and struggling.(page 68)”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

“Because of the tension and difficulty, I remember trying to do the silliest things when we weren't rolling cameras, anything to lift the spirits. But once on set, it was important to have full concentration. And I genuinely liked all of the cast members very much.”

Madeleine Stowe (1958) American actress

Mohican Press interview (2005)

“We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.”

Anaïs Nin book Little Birds

The Seduction of the Minotaur (1961); the documentation of the conflicting citations available on this page ( HNet http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=H-Judaic&month=1108&msg=RizwZWCgeA8woVU9mNOEYQ) seems very thorough, and in the end attributes the quote to this novel, which includes the line:
Lillian was reminded of the talmudic words: "We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are."
With Nin's description of the statement as "Talmudic" it afterwards began to be attributed to the Jewish Talmud, without any cited version or passage.
Similar statements appear in You Can Negotiate Anything (1982) by Herb Cohen: "You and I do not see things as they are. We see things as we are"; and in Awareness (1992) by Anthony de Mello: "We see people and things not as they are, but as we are".
Another similar statement without cited source is also attributed to Nin https://web.archive.org/web/20050322041559/http://learn-gs.org/learningctr/tutorial/4.html: We see the world as "we" are, not as "it" is; because it is the "I" behind the "eye" that does the seeing.
Disputed
Variant: We don't see people as they are. We see people as we are.
Source: Little Birds

“I don't know why people see the things that they do. I wouldn't pay to see them, they don't touch me or move me in any way.”

Sherilyn Fenn (1965) American actress

Sherilyn Fenn, quoted in "Sherilyn and Sherilyn Alike", by Dale Brasel. Detour (USA). May 1995. p. 46-50.

“How difficult it is to learn not to see like cameras, which has had such an effect on us. The camera sees everything at once. We don't. There's a hierarchy. Why do I pick out that thing, that thing, that thing?”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

David Hockney 27

Related quotes

Related topics