Photo I

River Hill High School

Words of Wisdom
Choose one quote as inspiration for further research on the artist who said it.
Find out:
When did they live? * What was going on at the time? * What kind of photographs did
they take? * How is their quote visible in their work? * What would a series of
photographs you take, based in that quote, look like? After you have thought about the
quotes and learned a little about the photographer, use a digital camera to take at least
one photo that embodies what you think the quote is referencing. Print it out and
include it in your sketchbook response.

These quotes may not translate literally. They are from artists talking about their work. Respond in your
sketchbook both visually and verbally over two facing pages to these questions and anything else you find
interesting or intriguing about the person you are researching. Print out at least one copy of your chosen
photographer’s photographs and incorporate it into your responses. After you have thought about the quotes
and learned a little about the photographer, use a digital camera to take at least one photo that embodies what
you think the quote is referencing, or a photo in the style of that photographer. Print it out and include it in
your sketchbook response. Consider layering images with text, and as always, plan a composition that creates
a sense of visual movement.

1. Your photography is a record of your living, for anyone who really sees. —Paul Strand

2. Only with effort can the camera be forced to lie: basically it is an honest medium: so the photographer
is much more likely to approach nature in a spirit of inquiry, of communion, instead of with the saucy swagger
of self-dubbed “artists.” —Edward Weston

3. I attempt, through much of my work, to animate all things—even so-called “inanimate” objects—with
the spirit of man. The creative photographer sets free the human contents of objects; and imparts humanity to
the inhuman world around him. —Clarence John Laughlin

4. Most of my photographs are compassionate, gentle, and personal. They tend to let the viewer see
himself. They tend not to preach. And they tend not to pose as art —Bruce Davidson

5. Photography is the only “language” understood in all parts of the world, bridging all nations and
cultures, it links the family of man. Independent of political influence—where people are free—it reflects
truthfully life and events, allows us to share in the hopes and despair of others, and illuminates political and
social conditions. We become the eye-witnesses of the humanity and inhumanity of mankind . . .
—Helmut Gernsheim

6. Sometimes I would set up the camera in a corner of the room, sit some distance away from it with a
remote control ion my hand, and watch our people while Mr. Caldwell talked with them. It might be an hour
before their faces or gestures gave us what we were trying to express, but the instant it occurred the scene
was imprisoned on a sheet of film before they knew what had happened. —Margaret Bourke-White

7. I have been photographing our toilet, that glossy enameled receptacle of extraordinary beauty . . . Here
was every sensuous curve of the “human figure divine” but minus the imperfections. Never did the Greeks
reach a more significant consummation to their culture, and it somehow reminded me, forward movement of
finely progressing contours, of the Victory of Samothrace. —Edward Weston

8. I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed. —Garry Winogrand

9. Photography is a tool for dealing with things everybody knows about but isn’t attending to. My
photographs are intended to represent something you don’t see. —Emmet Gowin

10. It is part of the photographer’s job to see more intensely than most people do. He must have and keep in
him something of the receptiveness of the child who looks at the world for the first time or of the
traveler who enters a strange country. —Bill Brandt

11.  Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no
contrivance on earth which can make them come back again. -Henri Cartier-Bresson

12. Moments altogether new, never seen before... compositions whose boldness outstrips the imagination of
painters... Then the creation of those instants which do not exist, contrived by means of photomontage. The
negative transmits altogether new stimuli to the sentient mind and eye. -Alexander Rodchenko

13. "The magic of these objects lies between the photograph of it and the book itself." I wanted to make sure
that people understood that it was photographic language being used. And it's through that language that the
books become very interesting to me as not just old things and reminiscence—which is the last thing I want
people to feel, is some kind of antiquarian, "oh, it isn't fun to look at the old stuff." I want it to be alive in some
new way. –Abelardo Morrell

14. I always prefer to work in the studio. It isolates people from their environment. They become in a sense . .
.symbolic of themselves. I often feel that people come to me to be photographed as they would go to a doctor
or a fortune teller - to find out how they are. - Richard Avedon

15. The still must tease with the promise of a story the viewer of it itches to be told. - Cindy Sherman

16. ..photographs open doors into the past but they also allow a look into the future. - Sally Mann

17. What I want is the world to remember the problems and the people I photograph. What I want is to
create a discussion about what is happening around the world and to provoke some debate with these
pictures. Nothing more than this. I don't want people to look at them and appreciate the light and the palate
of tones. I want them to look inside and see what the pictures represent, and the kind of people I photograph.
- Sebastiao Salgado

18. When you find yourself beginning to feel a bond between yourself and the people you photograph, when
you laugh and cry with their laughter and tears, you will know you are on the right track. – Weegee

19. Look at the subject as if you have never seen it before. Examine it from every side. Draw its outline with
your eyes or in the air with your hands, and saturate yourself with it. -John Baldessari

20. “My acts, my painting, my photographing, my considering, are part of, not separate from, this process of
evolution and change. My participation was not so much one of intellectual consideration as one of visceral
involvement.” –John Divola