Great Throughts Treasury

"The meaning of life cannot be separated from the meaning of death. Even the sun dies, so death is natural too. Only suffering must be appeased."

"A photo seen in its totality in one single moment, like a painting, its compostion is a melting together, an organic coordination of visual elements. You can?t compose gratuitously; there must be a neccessity, and you can?t separate form from substance."

"A photograph is neither taken nor seized by force. It offers itself up. It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos."

"A photographer must always work with the greatest respect for his subject and in terms of his own point of view. That is my own personal attitude; consequently I have a marked prejudice against ?arranged? photographs and contrived settings."

"A photographer?s eye is perpetually evaluating. A photographer can bring coincidence of line simply by moving his head a fraction of a millimeter. He can modify perspectives by a slight bending of the knees. By placing the camera closer to or farther from the subject, he draws a detail. But he composes a picture in very nearly the same amount of time it takes to click the shutter, at the speed of a reflex action."

"A velvet hand, a hawk?s eye- these we should all have."

"Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes."

"Actually, I?m not all that interested in the subject of photography. Once the picture is in the box, I?m not all that interested in what happens next. Hunters, after all, aren?t cooks."

"All I care about these days is painting - photography has never been more than a way into painting, a sort of instant drawing."

"As far as I am concerned, taking photographs is a means of understanding which cannot be separated from other means of visual expression. It is a way of shouting, of freeing oneself, not of proving or asserting one's own originality. It is a way of life."

"As photojournalists we supply information to a world that is overwhelmed with preoccupations and full of people who need the company of images... We pass judgment on what we see, and this involves an enormous responsibility."

"As time passes by and you look at portraits, the people come back to you like a silent echo. A photograph is a vestige of a face, a face in transit. Photography has something to do with death. It's a trace."

"Chemistry, physics, and optics enlarge our scope; it is for us to apply them as part of our technique in order to see whether they can add to what we wish to express. But a whole fetishism has grown up around the technique of photography. Technique should be so conceived and adapted as to induce a way of seeing things, preferably in essentials, excluding the effects of gratuitous virtuosity and other ineptitudes. Technique is important in that we have to master it, but it is the result that counts."

"Chim picked up his camera the way a doctor takes his stethoscope out of his bag, applying his diagnosis to the condition of the heart. His own was vulnerable."

"Drawing with its graphology, elaborates what our consciousness grasps in an instant."

"During the work, you have to be sure that you haven?t left any holes, that you?ve captured everything, because afterwards it will be too late."

"For a subject to be strong enough to be worth photographing, the relationship of its forms must be rigorously established. Composition starts when you situate your camera in space in relation to the object. For me, photography is the exploration in reality of the rhythm of surfaces, lines, or values; the eye carves out its subject, and the camera has only to do its work. That work is simply to print the eye?s decision on film."

"And no photographs taken with the aid of flash light, either, if only out of respect for the actual light - even when there isn't any of it."

"For me, the camera is a sketchbook, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously."

"For the world is movement, and you cannot be stationary in your attitude toward something that is moving."

"Avoid making a commotion, just as you wouldn?t stir up the water before fishing. Don?t use a flash out of respect for the natural lighting, even when there isn?t any. If these rules aren?t followed, the photographer becomes unbearably obtrusive."

"For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity."

"Composition must be one of our constant preoccupations, but at the moment of shooting it can stem only from our intuition, for we are out to capture the fugitive moment, and all the interrelationships involved are on the move."

"I believe that, through the act of living, the discovery of oneself is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us."

"For us the camera is a tool, the extension of our eye, not a pretty little mechanical toy. It is sufficient that we should feel at ease with the camera best adapted for our purpose. Adjustments of the camera ? such as setting the aperture and the speed ? should become reflexes, like changing gear in a car. The real problem is one of intelligence and sensitivity."

"He [Elliot Erwitt] has achieved a miracle... working on a chain gang of commercial campaigns, and still offering a bouquet of stolen photos with a flavor, a smile from his deeper self."

"He made me suddenly realize that photographs could reach eternity through the moment."

"Human faces are such a world!"

"I am neither an economist nor a photographer of monuments, and I am not much of a journalist either. What I am trying to do more than anything else is to observe life."

"I went to Marseille. A small allowance enabled me to get along, and I worked with enjoyment. I had just discovered the Leica. It became the extension of my eye, and I have never been separated from it since I found it. I prowled the streets all day, feeling very strung-up and ready to pounce, determined to "trap" life - to preserve life in the act of living. Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes."

"I?m always amused by the idea that certain people have about technique, which translate into an immoderate taste for the sharpness of the image. It is a passion for detail, for perfection, or do they hope to get closer to reality with this trompe I?oeil? They are, by the way, as far away from the real issues as other generations of photographers were when they obscured their subject in soft-focus effects."

"If God had wanted us to photograph with a 2 1/4 by 2 1/4 camera, he would have put eyes on our bellies."

"I hope that we don't ever see the day when ready-made photo system, which guarantees good photographic compositions in advance, go on the market."

"I cannot take portraits of actors because they pose."

"I prowled the streets all day, feeling very strung up and ready to pounce, determined to 'trap' life - to preserve life in the act of living. Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes."

"I find that you have to blend in like a fish in water, you have to forget yourself, you have to take your time, that's what I reproach our era for not doing. Drawing is slow, it is a meditation, but you have to know how to go slow in order to go quickly, slowness can mean splendor."

"In a portrait, I?m looking for the silence in somebody."

"I'm not responsible for my photographs. Photography is not documentary, but intuition, a poetic experience. It's drowning yourself, dissolving yourself, and then sniff, sniff, sniff ? being sensitive to coincidence. You can't go looking for it; you can't want it, or you want get it. First you must lose yourself. Then it happens."

"I'm not interested in photography. With photography you don't grasp anything. It's just intuition. To be a draftsman is very different."

"If the photographer succeeds in reflecting the exterior as well as interior world, his subject appear as ?in real life.? In order to achieve this, the photographer must respect the mood, become integrated into the environment, avoid all the tricks that destroy human truth, and also make the subject of the photo forget the camera and the person using it. Complicated equipment and lights get in the way of na‹ve, un-posed subjects. What is more fleeting than the expression on a face?"

"In order to give meaning to the world, one has to feel oneself involved in what he frames. This attitude requires concentration, a discipline of mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry."

"In photography is the evocation. Some photographs are like a Chekhov short story or a Maupassant story. They?re a quick thing, and there?s a whole world in them. But one is unconscious of that while shooting. That?s a wonderful thing with a camera. It jumps out of you."

"In photography, the smallest thing can become a big subject, an insignificant human detail can become a leitmotiv. We see and we make seen as a witness to the world around us; the event, in its natural activity, generates an organic rhythm of forms."

"In photography, visual organization can stem only from a developed instinct."

"In Gene's photographs there is something which throbs, something always tremulant. They are taken between the shirt and the skin. Anchored between the shirt and the skin ? at the heart ? his camera moves even by its passionate integrity."

"In photography there is a new kind of plasticity, product of the instantaneous lines made by the movement of the subject? But inside movement there is one moment at which the elements in motion are in balance. Photography must seize upon this moment and hold immobile the equilibrium of it?"

"In photography, you've got to be quick, quick, quick, quick... Like an animal and a prey."

"In photojournalistic reporting, inevitably, you?re an outsider."

"It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera? they are made with the eye, heart and head."

"Inside movement there is one moment in which the elements are in balance. Photography must seize the importance of this moment and hold immobile the equilibrium of it."