One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you'd be stricken blind.
Dorothea LangeRead
I had to get my camera to register things that were more important than how poor they were--their pride, their strength, their spirit.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes capturing the true essence and spirit of individuals beyond their material conditions.
Dorothea Lange highlights the importance of photographing people in a way that reveals their dignity and inner strength, rather than focusing solely on their poverty or hardships. Her work aimed to tell a deeper story that reflects the resilience and pride of those she photographed, challenging viewers to see beyond surface appearances and recognize the human spirit.
In practice
This quote can be used in a photography exhibition to illustrate the philosophy behind the artist's work.
One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you'd be stricken blind.
Being disabled gave me an immense advantage. People are kinder to you. It puts you on a different level than if you go into a situation whole and secure.
Surefire things are deadening to the human spirit.
The words that come direct from the people are the greatest.If you substitute one out of your own vocabulary, it disappears before your eyes.
Photographers stop photographing a subject too soon before they have exhausted the possibilities.
You go into a room and you know where you're welcome; you know where you're unwelcome.Sometimes in a hostile situation you stick around because hostility itself is important.The people who are garrulous and wear their heart on their sleeve and tell you everything, that's one kind of person, but the fellow who's hiding behind a tree and hoping you don't see him is the fellow that you'd better find out why.
Painting is not for me either decorative amusement, or the plastic invention of felt reality; it must be every time: invention, discovery, revelation.
It is very bad for (an artist) to talk about how he (creates). It is not the (artist's) province to explain or to run guided tours through the more difficult country of his work. It's none of their business that you had to learn. Let them think you were born that way.
Surrealism is not a poetry but a poetics, and even more, and more decisively, a world vision.
When we talk to somebody and we want to be nice or polite or show our more beautiful side, we try to use the best words that we know. This is what poets are doing. They are cleaning the words, they are inventing the sentiments, they are giving us a way to communicate.
I'd like people to remember me for a diligent expert workman. I think a poet is a workman. I think Shakespeare was a workman. And God's a workman. I don't think there's anything better than a workman.
At Sarah Lawrence, I realized that everybody was already what they were going to be. The painters were painting, the writers writing, the dancers dancing. And nobody wore any makeup. The art was uppermost.
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