"There is nothing as mysterious as a fact clearly described. I photograph to see what some thing will look like photographed."
"You must learn to love the obvious"
Minor White
“Be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence.”
“I'm always mentally photographing everything as practice.”
Walker Evans
"Concern yourself not with the question whether the medium, photography, is art. The question is dated and absurd to begin with. You are art or not; whatever you produce is or isn't. And don't think about that either; just do, act."
Clarence John Laughlin
"It should be possible for even the photographer - just as for the creative poet of painter - to use the object as a stepping stone to a realm of meaning completely beyond itself."
Bernard Plossu
“To take photographs one has to be like a monk, to achieve a maximum degree of concentration, like with meditation, and at the same time possess a delirious disposition. This is why I say that photographing is a meeting place for that sort of delirium and absolute peace. Photography is made up of those two moments. They combine to create dynamite.”
Diane Arbus
“I always thought of photography as a naughty thing to do - that was one of my
favorite things about it, and when I first did it, I felt very perverse.”
“My favorite thing is to go where I've never been.”
"I have no idea what I am doing. But incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm." - Woody Allen
Arbus's portrait of Mia Farrow
Henry Cartier Bresson
"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst"
William Eggleston
"A picture is what it is, and I've never noticed that it helps to talk about them, or answer specific questions about them, much less volunteer information in words. It wouldn't make any sense to explain them. Kind of diminishes them. People always want to know when something was taken, where it was taken, and, God knows, why it was taken. It gets really ridiculous. I mean, they're right there, whatever they are."
"I am at war with the obvious."
I didn't really feel like posting my own stuff today. I feel kind of nasty, mean spirited, and I was thinking about using the space to rant about something that's bugging me, but I'm glad to be able to spare you (Karen/anyone else) that silly diatribe. After reading the above Plossu quote on Alec Soth's blog, I thought it would be interesting to post some photography quotes/images to accompany them. The Plossu quote is excellent, and I think the guys I work with on the furniture moving crew at RU could attest to the fact that the Winogrand quotes apply to me--I've been carrying my polaroid around with me at work for the last few days, taking photos of flowers, arrows on a stage floor, the crushed side of a 4-cylinder race car one of the mechanics brought to work, etc.
I'm not very excited by most of Arbus's work, but I do like the first quote; and I'm not very excited by most Bresson quotes, but I like the images I posted. In any case, Karen, I hope you enjoy the post. I may get around to posting the stage arrow, the black-eyed susans, and the crushed door Cavalier (with taped on #94) tomorrow evening.
3 comments:
I definitely love the Plossu quotation. My man Thomas Merton would agree completely, as would one of his students, Brother Paul Quenon, who's got his own lead on delirium and absolute peace. We've talked about this before, but I certainly see photography as a type of meditation, too. Here lately, though, all of my meditation has come through taking too damn long to paint walls and move boxes. Funny enough, we just hung the painting of the monks on the living room wall today.
I'll give you a call tomorrow afternoon. We were thinking about coming over around 3:30 or 4.
Josh
I did enjoy your post and I'd love to see what you did with the black-eyed susans that you had been eying up.
I just noticed the title of this post; I approve.
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