Top 12 Quotes by Clarence John Laughlin

Photography is one of the most authentic and integral modes of expression possible in this world in which we live.

Photography is one of the most authentic and integral modes of expression possible in this world in which we live.

Photography, Expression, World

Keith F. Davis, Nancy Barrett, John H. Lawrence, Clarence John Laughlin (1990). “Clarence John Laughlin: visionary photographer”, Hallmark Card Inc

As a whole, I am interested in the symbolic, rather than the literal use of the camera.

Clarence John Laughlin

Use, Cameras, Symbolic

Keith F. Davis, Nancy Barrett, John H. Lawrence, Clarence John Laughlin (1990). “Clarence John Laughlin: visionary photographer”, Hallmark Card Inc

It therefore should be possible for even the photographer - just as for the creative poet or painter - to use the object as a stepping stone to a realm of meaning completely beyond itself.

Clarence John Laughlin

Creative, Use, Stones

In our society, most of us wear protective masks of various kinds and for various reasons. Very often the end result is that the masks grow to us, displacing our original characters with our assumed characters.

Clarence John Laughlin

Character, Our Society, Kind

Clarence John Laughlin, Lafcadio Hearn, Philadelphia Museum of Art (1973). “Clarence John Laughlin: the personal eye”

Everything that I see must become personal; otherwise, it is dead and mechanical. Our only chance to escape the blight of mechanization, of acting and thinking alike, of the huge machine which society is becoming, is to restore life to all things through the saving and beneficent power of the human imagination.

Clarence John Laughlin

Thinking, Imagination, Acting

Clarence John Laughlin, Lafcadio Hearn, Philadelphia Museum of Art (1973). “Clarence John Laughlin: the personal eye”

The mystery of light [and] the enigma of time form the twin pivots around which all my work revolves. In addition... my work attempts to create a mythology for our contemporary world.

Clarence John Laughlin

Light, World, Twins

Keith F. Davis, Nancy Barrett, John H. Lawrence, Clarence John Laughlin (1990). “Clarence John Laughlin: visionary photographer”, Hallmark Card Inc

I have approached the buildings as psychological and poetic manifestations - rather than from the more technical viewpoints of the architect and historian (which mostly miss the living spirit behind the forms).

Clarence John Laughlin

Missing, Viewpoints, Spirit

Keith F. Davis, Nancy Barrett, John H. Lawrence, Clarence John Laughlin (1990). “Clarence John Laughlin: visionary photographer”, Hallmark Card Inc

One of my basic feelings is that the mind, and the heart alike, of the photographer must be dedicated to the glory, the magic, and the mystery of light. The mystery of time, the magic of light, the enigma of reality - and their interrelationships - are my constant themes and preoccupations.

Clarence John Laughlin

Heart, Reality, Light

Clarence John Laughlin, Lafcadio Hearn, Philadelphia Museum of Art (1973). “Clarence John Laughlin: the personal eye”

... dissatisfaction with one's self and dissatisfaction with the world - is necessary - it is one of the prime things that keeps the artist going on - that drives him - happiness, as such, must come in between times, as best it can.

Clarence John Laughlin

Artist, Self, World

Keith F. Davis, Nancy Barrett, John H. Lawrence, Clarence John Laughlin (1990). “Clarence John Laughlin: visionary photographer”, Hallmark Card Inc

Let us see as steadily and completely as possible the realities of our age: the wasted lives, the scattered and misused resources (human and material), the steel magic of the misdirected machinery, the mad clockwork tragedy of it all.

Clarence John Laughlin

Reality, Mad, Magic

Keith F. Davis, Nancy Barrett, John H. Lawrence, Clarence John Laughlin (1990). “Clarence John Laughlin: visionary photographer”, Hallmark Card Inc

In old grimy streets, in isolated and decaying houses, sometimes far from the Vieux Carre, in little used and secluded cemeteries, there still sluggishly circulates the ebbing blood of the past, of a vigorous and vividly hued past.

Clarence John Laughlin

Past, Blood, House

There is nothing, under present conditions, that can be more easily and exactly reproduced than a technically good black-and-white photograph, and it is utter rot to burden those interested in them with irrelevant biographical trivia and pet longwinded theory.

Clarence John Laughlin

Black And White, Pet, Trivia

Clarence John Laughlin, Lafcadio Hearn, Philadelphia Museum of Art (1973). “Clarence John Laughlin: the personal eye”