Trotzky's Diary in Exile — 1935 (1958)
Source: Diary in Exile, 1935
“Above all, life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference”
Robert Frank, "Statement, 1958"; republished in: Vicki Goldberg. Photography in Print: Writings from 1816 to the Present https://books.google.nl/books?id=U3qXOp1iT6QC&pg=PA401, 1981, p. 401
Variant: Life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference and it is important to see what is invisible to others.
Context: I have been frequently accused of deliberately twisting subject matter to my point of view. Above all, I know that life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference. Opinion often consists of a kind of criticism. But criticism can come out of love. It is important to see what is invisible to others — perhaps the look of hope or the look of sadness. Also, it is always the instantaneous reaction to oneself that produces a photograph.
My photographs are not planned or composed in advance, and I do not anticipate that the onlooker will share my viewpoint. However, I feel that if my photograph leaves an image on his mind, something has been accomplished.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Robert Frank 5
American photographer and filmmaker 1924–2019Related quotes
w:Dorothy Norman recorded a conversation between Stieglitz and a man, looking at one of his 'Equivalents' prints
Source: 'Minor White, A Living Remembrance', Dorothy Norman, in 'Aperture', 1984, p. 9.
“A different world cannot be built by indifferent people.”
“Life is a movie; death is a photograph.”
Source: Henri Cartier-Bresson: Interviews and Conversations, 1951-1998, Photographing Is Nothing, Looking Is Everything! Interview with Philippe Boegner (1989), p. 115
“What matters in politics above all, is not what one says, but what one does.”
The Proclamation of London (1949)