“I didn’t photograph people as an example of New York urban something or other. I don’t have a philosophy. I have a camera. I look into the camera and take pictures. My photographs are the tiniest part of what I see that could be photographed. They are fragments of endless possibilities.”

— Saul Leiter

Saul Leiter: The Quiet Iconoclast (2009)

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Saul Leiter 10

American photographer 1923–2013

David Goldblatt (1930–2018) South African photographer

In an interview with Okwui Enwezor, as quoted in "The Camera Is Not a Machine Gun" http://designobserver.com/article.php?id=10557, Fred Ritchin, 1998

“Well, and the 'X-rays' [X-Ray, 1991, black and white photograph]... I was just interested in seeing what it looks like inside my head – and the idea that they could just examine the inside of my head like a globe. And then I photographed the facades in New York. [at the end of the 19-nineties]... I did the books at the end of the nineties, and I did the facades shortly after that.”

Isa Genzken (1948) German sculptor

2001 - 2010, Isa Genzken in conversation with Wolfgang Tillmans' (2003)

“I didn’t try to communicate any kind of philosophy since I am not a philosopher. I am a photographer. That’s it.”

Saul Leiter (1923–2013) American photographer

Saul Leiter: The Quiet Iconoclast (2009)

“Man: [looking at a Stieglitz's photo of 'Equivalents'] Is this a photograph of water?
Stieglitz: What difference does it make of what it is a photograph?
Man: But is it a photograph of water?
Stieglitz: I tell you it does not matter.
Man: Well, then, is it a picture of the sky?
Stieglitz: It happens to be a picture of the sky. But I cannot understand why that is of any importance.”

Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) American photographer

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.

“Anybody can take photographs. I have seen in the Herald Tribune some taken by a monkey that managed, with a Polaroid camera, as well as some camera owners. It is precisely because our profession is open to everyone that it remains, in spite of its fascinating ease, extremely difficult.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) French photographer

Source: Henri Cartier-Bresson: Interviews and Conversations, 1951-1998, To Seize Life: Interview with Yvonne Baby (1961), p. 45

“Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer,
I was taken by a photograph of you.
There were one or two I know
That you would have liked a little more,
But they didn't show your spirit quite as true.
You were turning round to see who was behind you
And I took your childish laughter by surprise,
And at the moment that my camera happened to find you
There was just a trace of sorrow in your eyes.”

Jackson Browne (1948) American singer-songwriter

"Fountain of Sorrow"
("Fountain of Sorrow" on YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaoHbNNK58k
Late for the Sky (1974)

“I do not photograph nature. I photograph my visions. Quoted in”

Man Ray (1890–1976) American artist and photographer

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/man-ray/prophet-of-the-avant-garde/510/ PBS episode of American Masters

“to show that [the success of my portray-] photographs was not due to subject matter – not to special trees or faces, or interiors, to special privileges – clouds were there for everyone... I wanted to photograph clouds to find out what I had learned in forty years about photography. Through clouds to put down my philosophy of life... My aim is increasingly to make my photographs look so much like photographs that unless one has eyes and sees, they won't be seen – and still everyone will never forget them having once looked at them.”

Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) American photographer

'How I came to Photograph Clouds', Alfred Stieglitz, in 'Amateur Photographer and Photography', (19 September 1923): 255.
about his new subject: 'clouds' in his long series 'Equivalents' he started in 1922

“In a war the normal codes of civilized behavior are suspended. It would be unthinkable in so-called normal life to go into someone's home where a family is grieving over the death of a loved one and spend long moments photographing them. It simply wouldn't be done. Those picture could not have been made unless I was accepted by the people I'm photographing. It's simply impossible to photograph moments such as those…without the complicity of the people I'm photographing…without the fact that the welcomed me, that they accepted me, that they wanted me to be there. They understand that a stranger who's come there with a camera to show the rest of the world what is happening to them…gives them a voice in the outside world that they otherwise wouldn't have. I try my best to approach people with respect. I want them to see that I have respect for them and the situation they're in. I want to be very open in my approach…feel open in my own heart towards them. I want them to be aware of that. People do sense it…with very few words…sometimes with no words at all.”

James Nachtwey (1948) American photographer

War Photographer, documentary, 2001

“You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”

Ansel Adams (1902–1984) American photographer and environmentalist

“I didn’t photograph people as an example of New York urban something or other. I don’t have a philosophy. I have a camera. I look into the camera and take pictures. My photographs are the tiniest part of what I see that could be photographed. They are fragments of endless possibilities.”

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