There are many reasons why photography does not attract the social and cultural attention it deserves. I would add one more which has received scant attention: it does not make a lot of noise. ... Perhaps photography would be more appreciated if camera shutters fired with the sound of a .357 Magnum.
I agree, intellectualism in photography is overrated. I just wish it could be replaced by common sense.
True, there are photographers who are failed artists, but so are most artists.
I seem to walk in the world as two people. The normal everyday-me is as preoccupied, unobservant and oblivious to visual clues as I ever was. Then there is the photographer-me, the one who has a camera in hand and a specific project in mind, and then the world suddenly jumps to life with potential pictures, as if a switch had been thrown in my brain and a different person is looking out of the same eyes.
Advice to artists: always take the opportunity to shut up.
A photograph is a picture and no more true or false than any other depiction; why is that so hard to comprehend?
Discussions allow photographers to shuffle their prejudices
I'd like my coffin to be a camera obscura so I can see what's going on outside.
Museum collections have given photography rigor, and mortis.
If you cannot think of anything to say that is useful or enlightening about your images, then don't say anything. There are plenty of other people who would love to put words in your mouth.
Words of wisdom for every photographer: 'Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking'. So said Goethe.
Why do photographers photograph? To make unreality visible.
I appreciate photographs which celebrate harmony. I don't particularly want to look at chaos. I see enough of that at home.
'I am a camera' but it is a discontinued model.
Photography is inextricably linked with life; the photographer is not invisibly behind the camera but projecting a life-attitude through the lens to create an interference pattern with the image. Who he is, what he believes, not only becomes important to know intellectually, but also becomes revealed emotionally and visibly through a body of work.
Be gentle and tolerant. Intimacy will grow, but will take time and cannot be rushed. If all goes well, soon you will become more familiar with each other, and handling will forge awkward fumbling and fondling into more satisfying and productive caresses and eventually into a comfortable working partnership. At this stage you will be ready to accompany your new camera into the world.
A few photographers make a killing; the rest can't make a living.
Think clearly, act sensibly, commit yourself to caring and work hard in order to discover joy. Then give the images back to the world from which they were taken.
Only in art can you make something that no one wants and still be considered successful.
If you are bored with your own photography you are really bored with what you are photographing, so pick a new subject about which you are knowledgeable and enthusiastic.
I was offered $100,000 for a print. Then I woke up.
If you take pictures does that make you an art thief?
My point is that meaning is always personal, changeable and subjective. There is no 'correct' interpretation of a photograph.
Photographers, like kids, should be seen and not heard.
I start a lot of photo projects but never seem to. . . .
