Walker Evans

It's easy to photograph light reflecting from a surface, the truly hard part is capturing the light in the air.

That’s my idea of what a portrait ought to be, anonymous and documentary and a straightforward picture of mankind.

The meaning of quality in photography's best pictures lies written in the language of vision. That language is learned by chance, not system.

It is the way to educate your eye and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop.

Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.

Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts.

It is easy to imagine fantasy as physical and myth as real. We do it almost every moment. We do this as we dream, as we think, and as we cope with the world about us. But these worlds of fantasy that we form into the solid things around us are the source of our discontent. They inspire our search to find ourselves.

I'm sometimes called a 'documentary photographer' but... a man operating under that definition could take a sly pleasure in the disguise. Very often I'm doing one thing when I'm thought to be doing another.

I used to try to figure out precisely what I was seeing all the time, until I discovered that I didn't need to. If the thing is true, why there it is.

What I believe is really good in the so-called documentary approach to photography is the addition of lyricism.[this quality] is usually produced unconsciously and even unintentionally and accidentally by the cameraman.